Word.ws English Dictionary

ferocious

/fəˈɹəʊʃəs/US/fəˈɹoʊʃəs/

ferocious adjective: marked by extreme and violent energy.

Adjective

ferocious (comparative more ferocious, superlative most ferocious)

  1. Marked by extreme and violent energy.
    • But it seemed to me that there were few faces like his, with the ferocious profile that brought to mind the Latin word rapax or one of Rouault's crazed death-dealing arbitrary kings.1976 September, Saul Bellow, Humboldt’s Gift, New York, N.Y.: Avon Books, →ISBN, page 376
    • Scotland needed a victory by eight points to have a realistic chance of progressing to the knock-out stages, and for long periods of a ferocious contest looked as if they might pull it off.2011 October 1, Tom Fordyce, “Rugby World Cup 2011: England 16-12 Scotland”, in BBC Sport, archived from the original on 09 Apr 2022
    Synonyms:
    fierce, furious, raging
  2. Extreme or intense.

ferocious meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Bengali

ferocious in Hindi

Marked by extreme and violent energy
हिंसक hinsak, उग्र ugra, क्रूर krūr

ferocious in Tamil

கடுஞ்சினமான, கொடிய, முரட்டுத்தனமான

ferocious in Urdu

ferocious, courageous
ژیاں źiyā̃

ferocious in Bengali

ferocious, formidable
দুর্দান্ত durdanto
More languagesFewer languages
ferocious in Malayalam
ക്രൂരമായ, നിർദ്ദയമായ, ഭീമമായ, രൗദ്രമായ
ferocious in Kannada
ಭಯಂಕರ, ಭೀಷಣ, ಉಗ್ರ, ಕ್ರೂರ
ferocious in Sanskrit
परिमन्यु parimanyú
ferocious in Nepali
उग्रतापूर्ण
ferocious in Arabic
شَرِس šaris
ferocious in Persian
سبع sabo'

Examples of ferocious in a sentence

  • The dog sounds ferocious but it's all show.
  • From miniscule bugs to great beasts of the deep, ferocious dinosaurs to cuddly-looking pandas.
  • At Iwamadera, the Nio, a distinctive ebony and shiny as lacquer, enhanced their ferocious, don't-mess-with-me muscular stance.

All 26 example sentences with ferocious

Synonyms of ferocious

13 more synonymsFewer synonyms

Antonyms

All synonyms and antonyms of ferocious

Forms of ferocious

comparativemore ferocious
superlativemost ferocious

Origin of ferocious

Taken from Latin ferōx (“wild, bold, savage, fierce”) + -ous.

Words formed from ferocious

Words that rhyme with ferocious

Questions about ferocious

What does ferocious mean?
Ferocious means marked by extreme and violent energy.
What is ferocious in Hindi?
Ferocious in Hindi is हिंसक (hinsak), उग्र (ugra), क्रूर (krūr). See Ferocious meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is ferocious?
Ferocious is an adjective.
How do you pronounce ferocious?
Ferocious is pronounced /fəˈɹəʊʃəs/ (UK).

Words near ferocious in the dictionary

  1. ferny
  2. Ferny Creek
  3. Fernyhough
  4. Fernyhoughs
  5. Fero
  6. ferocious
  7. ferociously
  8. ferociousness
  9. ferocities
  10. ferocity
  11. Ferodale

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: ferocious (page history and authors); ferocious (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); ژیاں (Urdu) (page history and authors); দুর্দান্ত (Bengali) (page history and authors); ferocious (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); ferocious (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); परिमन्यु (Sanskrit) (page history and authors); ferocious (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-ferocious.wav.

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