Meaning & use
horrifying
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Meanings
adjectivecomparable
Causing great fear or shock, often mixed with disgust.
Grammar: Used before a noun or after be: a horrifying scene.
Patterns
- horrifying to someone
- find something horrifying
The news footage of the flood was horrifying.
It is horrifying to think how close the children came to danger.
He told a horrifying story about being lost at sea.
adjectivecomparableinformal
Extremely bad or severe, used for something you find disturbing.
Grammar: Also used loosely for statistics and standards.
The state of the kitchen was horrifying.
Her horrifying handwriting is impossible to read.
The rise in prices was horrifying for pensioners.
Word forms
| comparative | more horrifying |
|---|---|
| superlative | most horrifying |
Common combinations
- a horrifying discovery
- Workers made a horrifying discovery in the basement.
- a horrifying thought
- The idea of being trapped is a horrifying thought.
- horrifying details
- The report gave horrifying details of the abuse.
- absolutely horrifying
- The crash was absolutely horrifying to watch.
- a horrifying sight
- The burned village was a horrifying sight.
Synonyms and how they differ
- terrifying
- Terrifying stresses personal fear, whereas horrifying often adds shock or moral disgust.
- appalling
- Appalling suggests something shockingly bad, often a failure or behavior, and may carry less fear.
- shocking
- Shocking is milder and can describe something merely surprising.
- ghastly
- Ghastly is more old-fashioned and can describe something just very unpleasant.
Opposites
Word family
Commonly confused: horrifying or horrified?
horrifying vs horrified
Horrified describes the person who feels the shock; horrifying describes the thing that causes it.
Practice
We were ___ by the pictures of the damage, which were truly horrifying.
Choose one answer.
The people feel the shock, so the -ed form is right. Horrifying would describe the pictures, not the people.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “horrifying”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.