Definitions

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

  • noun Appalling or atrocious condition, quality, or behavior; monstrousness.
  • noun An appalling or atrocious act, situation, or object, especially an act of unusual or illegal cruelty inflicted by an armed force on civilians or prisoners.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The state or quality of being atrocious; enormous wickedness; extreme criminality or cruelty.
  • noun A specific act of extreme heinousness or cruelty; an atrocious deed.

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

  • noun Enormous wickedness; extreme heinousness or cruelty.
  • noun An atrocious or extremely cruel deed.

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

  • noun uncountable  The quality or state of being atrocious; enormous wickedness; extreme criminality or cruelty.
  • noun countable  An extremely cruel act; a horrid act of injustice.

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

  • noun an act of atrocious cruelty
  • noun the quality of being shockingly cruel and inhumane

Etymologies

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