HIDEOUS

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does hideous mean? 

• HIDEOUS (adjective)
  The adjective HIDEOUS has 2 senses:

1. grossly offensive to decency or morality; causing horror

2. so extremely ugly as to be terrifying

  Familiarity information: HIDEOUS used as an adjective is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• HIDEOUS (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Grossly offensive to decency or morality; causing horror

Synonyms:

hideous; horrid; horrific; outrageous

Context example:

horrific conditions in the mining industry

Similar:

offensive (unpleasant or disgusting especially to the senses)

Sense 2

Meaning:

So extremely ugly as to be terrifying

Synonyms:

hideous; repulsive

Context example:

a repulsive mask

Similar:

ugly (displeasing to the senses)

Derivation:

hideousness (dreadful ugliness; horrible repulsiveness)

 Context examples 

When he had done that and looked round again, the two pieces were joined together, and a hideous man was sitting in his place.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

I had not gone more than 150 yards, however, when I heard a hideous outcry behind me, which caused me to run back again.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

In a moment the creature, beating and bumping along the wall like a huge moth within a gas-shade, came upon the opening, squeezed its hideous bulk through it, and was gone.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

It has no connection with this hideous business to-night.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Why did you form a monster so hideous that even you turned from me in disgust?

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

You need not tell her so, but I thought her dress hideous the other night.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

I wear nothing but purple now: I know I look hideous in it, but no matter—it is your dear brother's favourite colour.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

"My little friend!" said he, "I wish I were in a quiet island with only you; and trouble, and danger, and hideous recollections removed from me."

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

At each end of the yard there did indeed hang the dark figure of a man, jolting and lurching with hideous jerkings of its limbs at every plunge and swoop of the galley.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Just now it's the fashion to be hideous, to make your head look like a scrubbing brush, wear a strait jacket, orange gloves, and clumping square-toed boots.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)