abominable
adjective
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The tendency to hate evil omens is a vital part of the history of abominable. The word descends from the Latin verb abominari, which means "to deprecate as an ill omen" or "to detest"; abominari itself comes from ab- plus omin- ("from an omen"). When English speakers adopted abominable in the 14th century, they used it to express their disgust over evil or truly detestable things—and for 500 years that's the way things stood. In the 17th century, the word's meaning moderated, so that Scottish novelist William Black could write in A Princess of Thule (1873), "Sheila had nothing to do with the introduction of this abominable decoration." Other descendants of abominari are abominate ("to hate or loathe intensely") and abomination ("something odious or detestable").
Synonyms
Examples of abominable in a Sentence
Voice Of The People, New York Daily News, 19 June 2024
Gizelle takes an opportunity during dinner to speak on her daughter graduating and her anxieties around sending Grace off to college at FAMU considering the generally abominable sociopolitical climate in Florida.
—Shamira Ibrahim, Vulture, 26 Feb. 2024
The Bucks were abominable on defense, and Griffin reportedly lost his locker room.
—Kristian Winfield, New York Daily News, 23 Jan. 2024
The philosopher’s anti-Semitism, however abominable, shouldn’t stand in the way.
—Christian Madsbjerg, Foreign Affairs, 1 Jan. 2015
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“Abominable.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/abominable. Accessed 2 Jul. 2024.
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abominable
adjective
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