terrible

Etymology

Borrowed from Old French, from Latin terribilis (“frightful”), from terreō (“I frighten, terrify, alarm; I deter by terror, scare (away)”). Compare terror, deter.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈtɛ.ɹə.bl̩/, /ˈtɛ.ɹɪ.bl̩/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Homophone: tearable, in some accents

Adjective

terrible (comparative terribler or more terrible, superlative terriblest or most terrible)

1. Dreadful; causing alarm and fear.

   The witch gave him a terrible curse.

2. Formidable, powerful.
   • 1883: Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island

     […] and there was even a party of the younger men who pretended to admire him, calling him a "true sea-dog," and "real old salt," and such-like names, and saying there was the sort of man that made England terrible at sea.

3. Intense; extreme in degree or extent.
   • 1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 18, in The China Governess‎:

     ‘Then the father has a great fight with his terrible conscience,’ said Munday with granite seriousness. ‘Should he make a row with the police […]? Or should he say nothing about it and condone brutality for fear of appearing in the newspapers?

   He paid a terrible price for his life of drinking.

4. Unpleasant; disagreeable.
   • 1918, W. B. Maxwell, chapter 12, in The Mirror and the Lamp:

     To Edward […] he was terrible, nerve-inflaming, poisonously asphyxiating. He sat rocking himself in the late Mr. Churchill's swing chair, smoking and twaddling.

   The food was terrible, but it was free.

5. Very bad; lousy.
   • 2012 April 26, Tasha Robinson, “Film: Reviews: The Pirates! Band Of Misfits”, in The Onion AV Club:

     The openly ridiculous plot has The Pirate Captain (Hugh Grant) scheming to win the Pirate Of The Year competition, even though he’s a terrible pirate, far outclassed by rivals voiced by Jeremy Piven and Salma Hayek.

   Whatever he thinks, he is a terrible driver.

Further reading

• terrible in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913
• terrible in The Century Dictionary, The Century Co., New York, 1911

Anagrams

• treblier

Adjective

terrible (masculine and feminine plural terribles)

1. terrible (causing fear)
2. terrible (formidable, intense)

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /tɛ.ʁibl/

• audio

  (file)

Adjective

terrible (plural terribles)

1. (all senses) terrible
   • 1837, Louis Viardot, L’Ingénieux Hidalgo Don Quichotte de la Manche‎^{fr.Wikisource}, translation of El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Chapter II:

     Mais à peine se vit-il en chemin qu’une pensée terrible l’assaillit, et telle, que peu s’en fallut qu’elle ne lui fît abandonner l’entreprise commencée.

     But scarcely did he see himself on the road when a terrible thought assaulted him, and such that little was missing to make him abandon the enterprise he had started.

2. (colloquial) great, excellent

Further reading

• “terrible” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Adjective

terrible (plural terribles)

1. terrible (very bad)
2. terrific (very good)