heinous

Etymology

From Middle English hainous, from Old French haïneus (compare French haineux) from haïr (“to hate”), hadir (“to hate”) (compare Old French enhadir (“to become filled with hate”)), from Frankish *hattjan (“to hate”)

adj

  1. Totally reprehensible.
    I hope they catch the person responsible for that heinous crime.
    The perpetrators of this heinous act must be brought to justice.
    Perhaps burdened by the weight of history, talk of the heinous 2-2 draw in 2002, or the magnitude of the fixture, Scotland seemed spooked in the early throes. October 12 2021, Jamie Lyall, “Faroe Islands 0-1 Scotland”, in BBC Sport

Attribution / Disclaimer All definitions come directly from Wiktionary using the Wiktextract library. We do not edit or curate the definitions for any words, if you feel the definition listed is incorrect or offensive please suggest modifications directly to the source (wiktionary/heinous), any changes made to the source will update on this page periodically.