What's the difference between
and
Enter two words to compare and contrast their definitions, origins, and synonyms to better understand how those words are related.

Monstrous vs Unearthly - What's the difference?

monstrous | unearthly |

As adjectives the difference between monstrous and unearthly

is that monstrous is hideous or frightful while unearthly is not of the earth; non-terrestrial.

monstrous

English

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • hideous or frightful
  • * Shakespeare
    • So bad a death argues a monstrous life.
  • enormously large
    • a monstrous height
    a monstrous ox
  • freakish or grotesque
  • * John Locke
    • a monstrous birth
  • * Jeremy Taylor
    • He, therefore, that refuses to do good to them whom he is bound to love is unnatural and monstrous in his affections.
  • of, or relating to a mythical monster; full of monsters
  • * Milton
    • Where thou, perhaps, under the whelming tide / Visitest the bottom of the monstrous world.
  • (obsolete) marvellous; strange

    • Synonyms

    * See also

    unearthly

    English

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Not of the earth; non-terrestrial.
  • * 2012 , Charles Lockwood, Tragedy at Honda , page 65
    • In the hard glare of the Searchlight, which had been manned by Seaman 2nd class Evans W. Watkins, the rock had the unearthly look of a miniature satellite in space.
  • Preternatural or supernatural.
  • * 2011 , Steven Saylor, Roma: The Epic Novel of Ancient Rome
    • As a fourth finger snapped, Cacus gave an unearthly scream and relented.
  • Strange, enigmatic, or mysterious.
  • * 1819 [publ. Sep 1858], James Morton, "The Poetical Remains of the late Dr. John Leyden, with Memoirs of his Life", The Calcutta Review , volume 31, page 25
    • I then set out to survey the town in the self-same palankeen. The houses had all of them an unearthly appearance, by no means consonant to our ideas of Oriental splendor.
  • Ideal beyond the mundane.
  • * 2000 , Aileen Ribeiro, The Gallery of Fashion , page 42
    • By the late sixteenth century Elizabeth had become the icon-like Virgin Queen of legend, an image created, to a large extent, by her extraordinary, unearthly costume and appearance.
  • Ridiculous, ludicrous, or outrageous.
  • * 1927 , The Walther League Messenger , volume 36, page 225
    • I see my boys all wearing the same unearthly trousers, the same hair cuts, garish ties and sweaters, all rolling their socks and entertaining the same crazy notions about everything.