Link Centre Dictionary

heinous

hei·nous

UK/ˈheɪnəs/ US/ˈhiːnəs/ fairly common

adjective

1.

shockingly brutal or cruel

  • “murder is an atrocious crime”
  • “a grievous offense against morality”
  • “a grievous crime”
  • “no excess was too monstrous for them to commit”
Synonyms
Similar

Origin

From Middle English heynous, from Anglo-Norman hainous, heinous (compare French haineux) from Old French haïr, hadir (“to hate”) (compare Old French en-hadir (“to become filled with hate”)), from Frankish *hattjan (“to hate”) (compare Middle English hetien). More at hate. The fluctuation between pronunciations with /eɪ/ and /iː/ is old; the former reflects adoption of an unmonophthongised pronunciation of Old French -ai-, while the latter reflects a monophthongised form.

Related words

Word family

WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.