Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Conspicuously bad or offensive. See Synonyms at flagrant.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Above the common; beyond what is usual; extraordinary. In a good sense, distinguished; remarkable.
- Now, more commonly in a bad or condemnatory sense, extreme; enormous.
- Synonyms . Huge, monstrous, astonishing, surprising, unique, exceptional, uncommon, unprecedented.
Wiktionary
- adj. Exceptional, conspicuous, outstanding, most usually in a negative fashion.
- adj. Outrageously bad.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Surpassing; extraordinary; distinguished (in a bad sense); -- formerly used with words importing a good quality, but now joined with words having a bad sense
WordNet 3.0
- adj. conspicuously and outrageously bad or reprehensible
Etymologies
- From Latin ēgregius, outstanding : ē-, ex-, ex- + grex, greg-, herd; see ger- in Indo-European roots.
Examples
“That's why Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke protested Tuesday what he described as "egregious errors" in some reports, and released a staff memo with details.”
The Wall Street Journal: Separating Fact From Fiction on the Fed's Loans
“The judge discovered what she called egregious government disclosures to expected witnesses.”
“Cursing himself for what he called his egregious folly in making himself the slave of a mere lady's attendant, and for having given the parish, should they know of her refusal, a chance of sneering at him -- certainly a ground for thinking less of his standing than before -- he went home to the Old House, and walked indecisively up and down his back-yard.”
“The book is compiled and made public every year by Citizens Against Government Waste, which also dispenses "Oinker Awards" to highlight what it calls egregious examples of pork barrel requests.”
“I am advocating that bans on reimportation be lifted so that companies cannot engage in egregious price discrimination.”
Quack Remedy, Arnold Kling | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty
“One of the most egregious is the alleged "News" of Fox News and News Corp.”
“The one that I find to be egregious is requiring pre-screened questions.”
“What makes this even more egregious is that it appears to be absent any legal precedent (such as a pending lawsuit) for which Last. fm could at least hide behind as an excuse.”
“Even though the armed forces were then segregated by law and otherwise engaged in egregious discrimination against blacks, the NAACP and other civil rights organizations supported military recruiting because they recognized that the enemies the military was fighting were far worse than the racist injustices of the armed forces themselves.”
The Volokh Conspiracy » Kagan, the Harvard Ban on Military Recruiters, and Anti-Military Bias
“The otherwise good, but “difficult” employee gets fired; while others, who may engage in egregious misuse of government resources, go unnoticed.”
Looks Like MOD Can Overrule JSC (and NASA HQ) PAO - NASA Watch
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘egregious’.
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GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4084 more...
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Iaan
dirigisme, dystopia, cacotopia, ex ante, veritable, indefatigable, curmudgeon, desultory, antediluvian, transmogrify, pendent, elongate and 136 more...
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gre
municipal, whit, dissembler, berate, liberally, embellish, dissimilitude, histrionics, flamboyance, bombastic, bovine, calumny and 142 more...
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bad memory
copper, anvil, oblique, thrust, shrine, welfare, farewell, bitter, faction, sectarian, tangible, spectacle and 132 more...
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Words build meanings from origins( etymology )
These come from gamma meditation ,I think.
discursive, exogenous, machinations, purportedly, sumptuous, congruity, cantankerous, incongruous, festoon, hessian, ratiocinative, stratigraphic and 837 more...
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Mikey's favorite words
Here they are. Enjoy.
unconscionable, egregious, thunderfuzzled, magnanimous, stumblepony, somnambulant, torpor, nefarious, beamish, recalcitrant, recidivist, hogshead and 1 more...
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Better Words
Extremely fond of adjectives. To conquer phlegmatic speech and indolent phrases.
auric, hemispherical, quadrivial, adumbral, weighty, deuced, aliquot, commendable, anterior, osculant, ferly, enceinte and 26 more...
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Hard to Spell
Not sure I'd be able to spell these words...
camaraderie, belligerent, strategem, hippopotomonstros..., epitome, accommodate, subtle, sacrilegious, ambivalent, wookiee, onomatopoeia, idiosyncrasy and 3 more...
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Spellings
sandbox, hypocrisy, medicine, torture, succinct, Martyr, hypocrite =saying..., on-cue as if plan..., egregious, smitten by god, revel =Get great ..., disingenuous
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Top 500 SAT Words Shower Curtain
milosrdenstvi From Latin e(x) + grex, out of the herd. Originally used as a compliment, later came to be used ironically which is the meaning it has today. Strangely a similar thing seems to have happened to gregarious. Jun 3, 2009
mainframeguy My father recently decided that egregious was the best word to use to describe him. I think he likes the idea of being notorious... But that is really something else again. Jan 4, 2009
garyth123 first came across this word when an KAL 007 was shot down Dec 5, 2008
bilby "The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), the government workplace safety regulator, had not visited Imperial Sugar's Port Wentworth facility since 2000. When inspectors examined the blast site after the fact, they found rampant violations of the agency's already inadequate standards. They proposed a more than $5 million fine, and issuance of citations for 61 egregious willful violations, eight willful violations and 51 serious violations. Under OSHA's rules, a 'serious' citation is issued when death or serious physical harm is likely to occur, a 'willful' violation is a violation committed with plain indifference to employee safety and health, and 'egregious' citations are issued for particularly flagrant violations."
- Robert Weissman, 'The System Implodes: The 10 Worst Corporations of 2008', The Multinational Monitor, 23 Nov 2008. Nov 26, 2008
yarb Meanwhile 'outstanding' has evolved to mean (more often than not) 'outstandingly good'. Nov 9, 2007
kewpid The archaic meaning is 'outstanding'. But it has evolved to mean 'outstandingly bad'. Nov 9, 2007
logophile It means "conspicuously bad or offensive." Oct 23, 2007
kewpid To be outstanding. Oct 8, 2007
jennarenn Sometimes a word slips itself into every available conversation, until I begin to annoy even myself. This weekend it was egregious. Oct 8, 2007