abominable
adjective
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The tendency to hate evil omens is a vital part of the history of abominable. The word descends from the Latin verb abominari, which means "to deprecate as an ill omen" or "to detest"; abominari itself comes from ab- plus omin- ("from an omen"). When English speakers adopted abominable in the 14th century, they used it to express their disgust over evil or truly detestable things—and for 500 years that's the way things stood. In the 17th century, the word's meaning moderated, so that Scottish novelist William Black could write in A Princess of Thule (1873), "Sheila had nothing to do with the introduction of this abominable decoration." Other descendants of abominari are abominate ("to hate or loathe intensely") and abomination ("something odious or detestable").
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Examples of abominable in a Sentence
Daniel Dockery, Vulture, 9 Oct. 2024
His new home is a notorious federal jail in New York City known for extreme violence and abominable medical care.
—Rich Schapiro, NBC News, 18 Sep. 2024
But everyone agrees on one thing: The food was abominable.
—Peter Debruge, Variety, 3 Sep. 2024
No matter how abominable the road surface—and Los Angeles has some of the roughest urban highways in all America—the airbags and multi-link suspension quietly absorb the hits while driver and master glide along.
—Mark Ewing, Forbes, 16 Aug. 2024
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Cite this Entry
“Abominable.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/abominable. Accessed 29 Nov. 2024.
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abominable
adjective
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