horror
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈhɒɹ.ə/
ipa: /ˈhɔɹ.ɚ/
ipa: /ˈhɑɹ.ɚ/
note: some accents
ipa: /ˈhɔɚ/
homophone: whore
homophone: hoar (some rhotic American accents with the horse–hoarse merger)
rhymes: -ɒɹə(ɹ)
rhymes: -ɔː(ɹ)
Forms: form: horrors
form: horrour
Etymology: From Middle English horer, horrour, from Old French horror, from Latin horror (“a bristling, a shaking, trembling as with cold or fear, terror”), from horrere (“to bristle, shake, be terrified”). Displaced native Old English ōga.
Senses: examples: text: Their swarthy Hosts wou'd darken all our Plains, / Doubling the native Horror of the War, / And making Death more grim.
ref: 1712, Joseph Addison, Cato: A tragedy, published 1750, page 44:
glosses: An intense distressing emotion of fear or repugnance.
examples: text: I saw many horrors during the war.
text: The Home Magazine for July (Binghamton and New York) contains ‘The Patriots' War Chant,’ a poem by Douglas Malloch; ‘The Story of the War,’ by Theodore Waters; ‘A Horseman in the Sky,’ by Ambrose Bierce, with a portrait of Mr. Bierce, whose tales of horror are horrible of themselves, not as war is horrible; ‘A Yankee Hero,’ by W. L. Calver; ‘The Warfare of the Future,’ by Louis Seemuller; ‘Florence Nightingale,’ by Susan E. Dickenson, with two rare portraits, etc.
ref: 1898 July 3, Philadelphia Inquirer, page 22:
text: Could there be stories with more horror than these?
ref: 2009, Devin Watson, Horror Screenwriting:
glosses: Something horrible; that which excites horror.
examples: text: “Mrs. Yule's chagrin and horror at what she called her son's base ingratitude knew no bounds ; at first it was even thought that she would never get over it. […] ”
ref: 1904–1905, Baroness Orczy [i.e., Emma Orczy], “The Tragedy in Dartmoor Terrace”, in The Case of Miss Elliott, London: T[homas] Fisher Unwin, published 1905, →OCLC; republished as popular edition, London: Greening & Co., 1909, OCLC 11192831, quoted in The Case of Miss Elliott (ebook no. 2000141h.html), Australia: Project Gutenberg of Australia, February 2020:
glosses: Intense dislike or aversion; an abhorrence.
examples: text: Those who enjoy horror, stories overflowing with blood and black mystery, will be grateful to Richard Marsh for writing ‘The Beetle.’
ref: 1917 February 11, New York Times, Book reviews, page 52:
text: A well-received Johnny Fuller R & B horror called "Haunted House."
ref: 1990, Wayne Jancik, The Billboard Book of One-Hit Wonders, →ISBN, page 156:
text: […] there were hastily produced B movies, such as the peplums, the spaghetti westerns, the detective stories, the horrors.
ref: 2006, Pierluigi on Cinema:
glosses: A genre of fiction designed to evoke a feeling of fear and suspense.
glosses: A genre of fiction designed to evoke a feeling of fear and suspense.
An individual work in this genre.
examples: text: The neighbour's kids are a pack of little horrors!
glosses: A nasty or ill-behaved person; a rascal or terror.
glosses: An intense anxiety or a nervous depression; often the horrors.
examples: text: `My belief is that he had the horrors without knowin' it.'
ref: 1930, Norman Lindsay, Redheap, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, →OCLC, page 53:
glosses: Delirium tremens.
Synonyms: nightmare
Hypernyms: speculative fiction
Derived terms: analog horror
analogue horror
Belsen horror
body horror
chamber of horrors
dry horrors
ecohorror
Eurohorror
folk horror
fridge horror
horror autotoxicus
horror chamber
horrorcore
horrorfest
horror film
horror flick
horrorful
horrorist
horrorize
horrormeister
horrormonger
horror movie
horror of horrors
horrorous
horror punk
horrorscope
horror show
horror-show
horrorsome
horror story
horror-stricken
horror-struck
horrorthon
horror-thriller
horror vacui
horrorzine
house of horrors
J-horror
mascot horror
midnight horror
nonhorror
outhorror
psychological horror
shock horror
survival horror
technohorror
Related terms: horrendous
horrible
horrid
horrific
horrifical
horrification
horrify