INFAMOUS

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does infamous mean? 

• INFAMOUS (adjective)
  The adjective INFAMOUS has 1 sense:

1. known widely and usually unfavorably

  Familiarity information: INFAMOUS used as an adjective is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• INFAMOUS (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Known widely and usually unfavorably

Synonyms:

ill-famed; infamous; notorious

Context example:

the infamous Benedict Arnold

Similar:

disreputable (lacking respectability in character or behavior or appearance)

Derivation:

infamy (evil fame or public reputation)

infamy (a state of extreme dishonor)

 Context examples 

— That infamous letter—Did she shew it you?

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

If I ever could reproach her with her infamous condition, I would go anywhere to do so.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

In the meantime, there was no doubt of one thing; they kept an infamous bad watch.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

Your conduct has been most infamous.

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

Bertha Mason, the true daughter of an infamous mother, dragged me through all the hideous and degrading agonies which must attend a man bound to a wife at once intemperate and unchaste.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

A private dance, without sitting down to supper, was pronounced an infamous fraud upon the rights of men and women; and Mrs. Weston must not speak of it again.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

This I solemnly declare to be a most infamous falsehood, without any grounds, further than that her grace was pleased to treat me with all innocent marks of freedom and friendship.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

I am no stranger to the particulars of your youngest sister's infamous elopement.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

A documentary broadcast on Sunday on the UK's Channel 4 claims the RMS Titanic was weakened by a three-week fire before its infamous 1912 sinking.

(UK documentary claims fire weakened RMS Titanic, Wikinews)

“Oh, I weary of your preaching!” she cried, and swept away with a toss of her beautiful head, leaving Alleyne as cast down and ashamed as though he had himself proposed some infamous thing.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)