1
as in horrible
causing fear
a horrendous explosion shook the building
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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
2
as in awful
causing intense displeasure, disgust, or resentment
a horrendous breach of good manners that should not escape censure
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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
3
as in horrific
extremely disturbing or repellent
emergency room personnel did not flinch even from the most horrendous injuries
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Example Sentences
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Recent Examples of horrendous
Getty Images Germany has rebounded from its horrendous 2-0 defeat to Slovakia on Thursday.
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Manuel Veth, Forbes.com, 7 Sep. 2025
Coach Billy Napier’s team blended play-calling staleness, horrendous clock management, defensive containment issues and overall immaturity.
—Noah White, Miami Herald, 7 Sep. 2025
And so to see that despite the exploitation that enslaved people were being subjected to despite the horrendous conditions, all this brutality going on, and yet people are trying actively recreating traditions, right?
—Outside Online, 27 Aug. 2025
Massachusetts has a horrendous reputation as the most criminal-loving anti-prosecution, anti-incarceration state in the nation.
—Wendy Murphy, Boston Herald, 11 Aug. 2025
See All Example Sentences for horrendous
Recent Examples of Synonyms for horrendous
Adjective
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Miami could choose to move on from the star receiver due to the horrible season-ending injury.—
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Many of the game’s best teams spent the regular season alternating between brilliant and horrible.—
Adjective
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Once the selloff happened, the Twins were destined to be awful for the final two months, all but sealing Baldelli’s fate.—
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That’s the awful low; but Dunne’s story is ultimately one of redemption.—
Adjective
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Those bots have attracted lawsuits in horrific instances where users lost their grip on reality or took their own lives after interacting with them.—
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Many of the base’s survivors have similarly described the singularly horrific nature of those 45 square miles in eastern Cuba.—
Adjective
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The device sounded terrifying – an apparently new, nuclear capable IRBM, fired with multiple conventional warheads, that the Kremlin boasted could rip through European defenses.—
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He’s supposed to be a terrifying mirror to our discontent.—
Adjective
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As if the Twins hadn’t experienced enough misery, September opened at home with an ugly, four-game sweep by the White Sox, who lost at least 100 games for the third year in a row.—
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When the Motion Picture Association of America joined the consortium, in 2014, the fight grew uglier.—
Adjective
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The crew have put two giant skeletons with their arms in the air like gruesome wacky waving inflatable tube men at the Farm's entrance to catch your eye and indicate where the spooky fun is at.—
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The fake blood trapped between the layers bursts out at the incision point, replicating in gruesome detail the sensation of real bleeding.—
Adjective
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Our prayers are with the victims and their families during this terrible tragedy.—
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Rather, the wretched truth is a reminder that history’s wins are often, if not always, accompanied by terrible loss — that, sometimes, what was cast as victory may have actually been defeat.—
Adjective
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Don’t notice all the ways humans are disgusting.—
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But this disgusting and hateful speech is still speech and is protected by our First Amendment.—
Cite this Entry
“Horrendous.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/horrendous. Accessed 2 Oct. 2025.
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