Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Grossly wicked or reprehensible; abominable: a heinous crime.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Hateful; odious; reprehensible.
- Hence Reprehensibly great; enormous; aggravated: sometimes used (in a similar sense) of persons.
- Synonyms Wicked, Infamous, etc. (see atrocious); flagitious, dreadful, horrible.
Wiktionary
- adj. Totally reprehensible.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Hateful; hatefully bad; flagrant; odious; atrocious; giving great offense; -- applied to deeds or to character.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. extremely wicked, deeply criminal
Etymologies
- From Old French haineus (compare French haineux) from haïr ("to hate"), of Germanic origin. (Wiktionary)
- Middle English, from Old French haineus, from haine, hatred, from hair, to hate, from Frankish *hatjan. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Turkey's foreign ministry condemned what it called a "heinous assassination.”
The Wall Street Journal: Kurds Step Into Syria's Protest Mix
“Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., said she was outraged by what she called a "heinous" bombing.”
“He described what he called the heinous nature of the crime, insisting that a troubled past couldn't justify Komisarjevsky's actions.”
“The family of the 22-year-old suspect in the mass shooting in Arizona is expressing sorrow for what they called heinous events.”
“Meckel, a former Army commander during Operation Iraqi Freedom, is offering a cash reward to anyone who has information about the shooting, which he called heinous and malicious.”
“Just as heinous is that every year, more and more municipal governments pretend that they plant these all-seeing menaces in the interest of “safety.””
Think Progress » Tucker Carlson’s new website kicks off with jokes about rape, being gay.
“The truth is, Barack Obama supports the death penalty for certain heinous crimes, and he led the effort to reform the death penalty system to ensure that it's administered fairly and that convictions stand in court.”
Obama Campaign Responds To “Victims” Ad - Swampland - TIME.com
“Any crime, however heinous, is in principle to be blamed on antecedent conditions acting through the accused's physiology, heredity and environment, said Dawkins.”
“Any crime, however heinous, is in principle to be blamed on antecedent conditions acting through the accused's physiology, heredity and environment.”
“Any crime, however heinous, is in principle to be blamed on antecedent conditions acting through the accused's physiology, heredity and environment”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘heinous’.
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GRE 2014
abate, abdicate, abase, aberrant, abeyance, abhor, abjure, abortive, abound, abrasive, abreast, abridge and 1577 more...
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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 4087 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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macabre
words associated with the macabre & horror.
( open list, randomness )
more:
http://www.wordnik.co...ghastly, grisly, culeus, silly, gruesome, horrid, morbid, angelic, shocking, hideous, ghoulish, frightful and 135 more...
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From reading
Collected from reading
venerate, reprobate, reticent, adoration, ethereal, ephemeral, equivocal, contumacious, heinous, solicitous, agnostic, aberration and 335 more...
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EN - eesily missspellable wirds
accessible, accommodate, achievement, acquaintance, address, advertisement, alleged, athletics, attendance, auxiliary, believe, challenge and 118 more...
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Words build meanings from origins( et...
These come from gamma meditation ,I think.
discursive, exogenous, machinations, purportedly, sumptuous, congruity, cantankerous, incongruous, festoon, hessian, ratiocinative, stratigraphic and 2042 more...
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#faveword
Words chosen as favorites for the Twitter hashtag #faveword.
autumnal, grotto, chiaroscuro, sfumato, homunculus, zing, zest, effervescent, bewitch, avuncular, susurrus, Styrofoam and 205 more...
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utopia
Words used in the book utopia by sir thomas more
credence, proverb, provost, dissimulation, espy, neologism, vouchsafe, liberality, weal, inquisitive, assentation, verily and 21 more...
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Words you were amazed to hear in a song
Amazed… or awestruck.
You might want to leave a comment with title and artist somewhere. Thanks.fuligin, lictor, slither, heinous, stigma, penance, conciliation, Urth, lino, acquiesce, halo halo, bo peep and 62 more...
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Old words
recalcitrant, grok, Hiatus, shanghai, pervade, diffuse, tempestuous, incorrigible, daunt, cull, Erudite, Assuage and 34 more...
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Go over
mollify, obstinate, obviate, occlude, onerous, obscure, paragon, pedantic, perfunctory, placate, placid, prodigal and 364 more...
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SAT words
abase, abate, abet, abject, abjure, abrogate, abscond, abstruse, accolade, accommodating, accost, accretion and 202 more...
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my GRE words
pedant, wizened, histrionic, logorrhea, frenetic, approbation, quibble, knell, acclivity, droog, prevarication, aplomb and 182 more...
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newGRE
mostly from magoosh
imbue, verge on, nonchalant, deliberate, timorous, futile, provisional, dissect, checked, tinged, alluring, visionary and 1046 more...
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Revised GRE Wordlist_2013
Vocabulary building for my quest of GRE 2013
ephemeral, esoteric, rhetoric, censure, egregious, pittance, dupe, mulct, paucity, alacrity, maintain, laconic and 996 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for heinous.
arby An appropriately ugly word. Jul 19, 2007