horrifying
/ˈhɔːɹɪ.faɪ.ɪŋ/
horrifying is the present participle and gerund of horrify.
Meaning of horrify
Verb
horrify (third-person singular simple present horrifies, present participle horrifying, simple past and past participle horrified)
- To cause to feel extreme apprehension or unease; to cause to experience horror.
- The haunted house horrified me, as I passed from one room to the next feeling more and more like I wasn’t going to survive.
- Synonyms:
- frighten
Adjective
horrifying (comparative more horrifying, superlative most horrifying)
- Tending to inspire horror; that horrifies; horrific.
- Jon & Kate Plus 8 is a show based on two facts: 1) Jon and Kate Gosselin have eight children, and 2) the word ‘Kate’ rhymes with the word ‘eight’. One suspects that if Kate were ever to have another child, a shady network executive would urge her to put it in a binbag with a brick and drop it down...2009 May 22, Stuart Heritage, “Jon & Kate Latest: People You Don’t Know Do Crap You Don’t Care About”, in Hecklerspray, archived from the original on 15 Apr 2024
- Synonyms:
- affreux, alarming, spine-tingling, appalling, awful, eldritch, buggish, butt-clenching, buttock-clenching, dismayful
Synonyms of horrifying
Forms of horrifying
| comparative | more horrifying |
|---|---|
| superlative | most horrifying |
Words formed from horrifying
Questions about horrifying
- What does horrifying mean?
- Horrifying means tending to inspire horror; that horrifies; horrific.
- What is horrifying the present participle and gerund of?
- Horrifying is the present participle and gerund of horrify.
- What part of speech is horrifying?
- Horrifying is an adjective.
- How do you pronounce horrifying?
- Horrifying is pronounced /ˈhɔːɹɪ.faɪ.ɪŋ/.
Words near horrifying in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: horrifying (page history and authors); horrify (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:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-horrifying.wav.
Cite this entry: “horrifying.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/horrifying. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.