appalling

Syllables: ap·pall·ing/əˈpɔːlɪŋ/

appalling is the present participle and gerund of appall.

Adjective

appalling (comparative more appalling, superlative most appalling)

Horrifying and astonishing.
- That was an appalling waste of money.
Extremely unfavorable; terrible.
- Sir Thomas Royden, Chairman of the L.M.S.R., and Mr. Robert Holland-Martin, Chairman of the Southern Railway, both deplored the wholesale robbery and petty pilferage which have increased until they have reached appalling dimensions.1942 May-June, “Theft on the Railways”, in Railway Magazine, page 130
- Karius has too much previous for this to be considered a one-off and, as goalkeeping mistakes go, his errors in the 51st and 83rd minutes were as bad as one another. In fact, they were not just bad. They were appalling, so wretched it was difficult to recall a worse goalkeeping performance in any...2018 May 26, Daniel Taylor, “Liverpool go through after Mohamed Salah stops Manchester City fightback”, in The Guardian (London)

appall (third-person singular simple present appalls, present participle appalling, simple past and past participle appalled)

(transitive) To fill with horror or indignation; to dismay.
- The evidence put forth at the court appalled most of the jury.
Synonyms:

terrify, daunt, frighten, scare, depress, affright, alarm, dismay, fray, grill
(obsolete, transitive) To make pale; to blanch.
- Thanſwere that ye made to me my dere
  whañ I did ſewe for my poore hartes redreſſe
  hathe ſo apalld my countenaunce […]c. 1527–1542, Thomas Wyatt, “Thanſwere that ye made to me my dere”, in Egerton MS 2711, page 63r
(obsolete, transitive) To weaken; to reduce in strength
- wine of it owne nature will not congeale and freeze, onely it will loose the strength, and become appalled in extremitie of cold.1601, C[aius] Plinius Secundus [i.e., Pliny the Elder], “(please specify |book=I to XXXVII)”, in Philemon Holland, transl., The Historie of the World. Commonly Called, The Naturall Historie of C....
(intransitive, obsolete) To grow faint; to become weak; to become dismayed or discouraged.
(intransitive, obsolete) To lose flavor or to become stale.

comparative	more appalling
superlative	most appalling

By surface analysis, appall + -ing.

What does appalling mean?: Appalling means horrifying and astonishing.
What is appalling the present participle and gerund of?: Appalling is the present participle and gerund of appall.
What part of speech is appalling?: Appalling is an adjective.
How do you pronounce appalling?: Appalling is pronounced /əˈpɔːlɪŋ/.

Adapted from Wiktionary: appalling (page history and authors); appall (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

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Cite this entry: “appalling.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/appalling. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.