adjective
- horrible or frightful to the senses; repulsive; very ugly: a hideous monster.
- shocking or revolting to the moral sense: a hideous crime.
- distressing; appalling: the hideous expense of moving one’s home to another city.
adjective
- extremely ugly; repulsivea hideous person
- terrifying and horrific
c.1300, “terrifying, horrible, dreadful,” from Anglo-French hidous, Old French hideus, earlier hisdos “hideous, horrible, awful, frightening” (11c.; Modern French hideux), from hisda “horror, fear,” perhaps of Germanic origin; or else from Vulgar Latin *hispidosus, from Latin hispidus “shaggy, bristly,” “[b]ut this presents numerous difficulties” [OED]. Meaning “repulsive” is late 14c.