Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Highly disturbing emotionally.
  • adjective Highly offensive; indecent or distasteful.
  • adjective Very vivid or intense in tone.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Causing a shock of indignation, disgust, distress, or horror; extremely offensive, painful, or repugnant.
  • Synonyms Wicked, Scandalous, etc. (see atrocious), frightful, dreadful, terrible, revolting, abominable, execrable, appalling.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Causing to shake or tremble, as by a blow; especially, causing to recoil with horror or disgust; extremely offensive or disgusting.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Inspiring shock; startling
  • adjective Unusually obscene or lewd
  • adjective colloquial Extremely bad
  • verb Present participle of shock.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective glaringly vivid and graphic; marked by sensationalism
  • adjective giving offense to moral sensibilities and injurious to reputation

Etymologies

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