horror

• horrour (obsolete)

From Middle English horer, horrour, from Old French horror, from Latin horror (“a bristling, a shaking, trembling as with cold or fear, terror”), from horrere (“to bristle, shake, be terrified”). Displaced native Old English ōga.

• (Received Pronunciation, New England) IPA^(key): /ˈhɒɹ.ə/
• (General American, Canada) IPA^(key): /ˈhɔɹ.ɚ/

• Audio (US):

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• (New York City, Philadelphia) IPA^(key): /ˈhɑɹ.ɚ/
• (Traditional, non-rhotic New York City) IPA^(key): /ˈhɑɹ.ə/
• (some accents) IPA^(key): /ˈhɔɚ/
• Homophones: whore, hoar (some rhotic American accents with the horse–hoarse merger)
• Rhymes: -ɒɹə(ɹ), -ɔː(ɹ)
• Hyphenation: horr‧or

horror (countable and uncountable, plural horrors)

1. (countable, uncountable) An intense distressing emotion of fear or repugnance.
   • 1712, Joseph Addison, Cato: A tragedy, published 1750, page 44:

     Their swarthy Hosts wou'd darken all our Plains, / Doubling the native Horror of the War, / And making Death more grim.

2. (countable, uncountable) Something horrible; that which excites horror.

   I saw many horrors during the war.

   • 1898 July 3, Philadelphia Inquirer, page 22:

     The Home Magazine for July (Binghamton and New York) contains ‘The Patriots' War Chant,’ a poem by Douglas Malloch; ‘The Story of the War,’ by Theodore Waters; ‘A Horseman in the Sky,’ by Ambrose Bierce, with a portrait of Mr. Bierce, whose tales of horror are horrible of themselves, not as war is horrible; ‘A Yankee Hero,’ by W. L. Calver; ‘The Warfare of the Future,’ by Louis Seemuller; ‘Florence Nightingale,’ by Susan E. Dickenson, with two rare portraits, etc.

   • 2009, Devin Watson, Horror Screenwriting‎^[2]:

     Could there be stories with more horror than these?

3. (countable, uncountable) Intense dislike or aversion; an abhorrence.
   • 1904–1905, Baroness Orczy [i.e., Emma Orczy], “The Tragedy in Dartmoor Terrace”, in The Case of Miss Elliott, London: T[homas] Fisher Unwin, published 1905, →OCLC; republished as popular edition, London: Greening & Co., 1909, OCLC 11192831, quoted in The Case of Miss Elliott (ebook no. 2000141h.html), Australia: Project Gutenberg of Australia, February 2020:

     “Mrs. Yule's chagrin and horror at what she called her son's base ingratitude knew no bounds ; at first it was even thought that she would never get over it. […] ”

4. (uncountable) A genre of fiction designed to evoke a feeling of fear and suspense.
   • 1917 February 11, New York Times, Book reviews, page 52:

     Those who enjoy horror, stories overflowing with blood and black mystery, will be grateful to Richard Marsh for writing ‘The Beetle.’

   1. (countable) An individual work in this genre.
   • 1990, Wayne Jancik, The Billboard Book of One-Hit Wonders, →ISBN, page 156:

     A well-received Johnny Fuller R & B horror called "Haunted House."

   • 2006, Pierluigi on Cinema:

     […] there were hastily produced B movies, such as the peplums, the spaghetti westerns, the detective stories, the horrors.

5. (countable, colloquial) A nasty or ill-behaved person; a rascal or terror.

   The neighbour's kids are a pack of little horrors!

6. (informal) An intense anxiety or a nervous depression; often the horrors.
7. (in the plural, informal) Delirium tremens.
   • 1930, Norman Lindsay, Redheap, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, →OCLC, page 53:

     `My belief is that he had the horrors without knowin' it.'

• nightmare

• → Japanese: ホラー (horā)
• → Korean: 호러 (horeo)
• → Polish: horror

• “horror”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “horror”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.
• “horror”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.

Borrowed from Latin horror.

• IPA^(key): (Central) [uˈror]
• IPA^(key): (Balearic) [oˈro]
• IPA^(key): (Valencia) [oˈroɾ]

• Audio (Barcelona):

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horror m (plural horrors)

1. horror, disgust

   Synonyms: repulsió, aversió

2. terror

   Synonyms: terror, por

3. (figurative) person or thing inspiring the above feelings

• “horror”, in Diccionari de la llengua catalana [Dictionary of the Catalan Language] (in Catalan), second edition, Institute of Catalan Studies [Catalan: Institut d'Estudis Catalans], April 2007
• “horror”, in Gran Diccionari de la Llengua Catalana, Grup Enciclopèdia Catalana, 2026
• “horror” in Diccionari normatiu valencià, Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua.
• Alcover, Antoni Maria; Moll, Francesc de Borja (1963), “horror”, in Diccionari català-valencià-balear (in Catalan)

Borrowed from English horror.

• IPA^(key): /ˈɦɔ.rɔr/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Hyphenation: hor‧ror

horror m (uncountable, no diminutive)

1. horror (genre of fiction)

• van der Sijs, Nicoline, editor (2010), “horror”, in Etymologiebank, Meertens Institute

Learned borrowing from Latin horror.

• IPA^(key): [ɔˈroɾ]

horror m (plural horrores)

1. horror

   Synonyms: espanto, pavor, terror

• Antón Luís Santamarina Fernández, editor (2006–2013), “horror”, in Dicionario de Dicionarios da lingua galega [Dictionary of Dictionaries of the Galician language] (in Galician), Santiago de Compostela: Instituto da Lingua Galega
• Antón Luís Santamarina Fernández, Ernesto Xosé González Seoane, María Álvarez de la Granja, editors (2003–2018), “horror”, in Tesouro informatizado da lingua galega (in Galician), Santiago de Compostela: Instituto da Lingua Galega

Borrowed from Latin horror.^[1]

• IPA^(key): [ˈhorːor]
• Hyphenation: hor‧ror
• Rhymes: -or

horror (plural horrorok)

1. horror

From Proto-Italic *horzōs, remodeled into a rhotic-stem. Equivalent to horreo +‎ -or.

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [ˈhɔr.rɔr]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [ˈɔr.ror]

horror m (genitive horrōris); third declension

1. bristling (standing on end)
2. shaking, shivering, chill
3. dread, terror, horror

Third-declension noun.

• horrendus
• horridus
• horribilis
• horrificus

• “horror”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “horror”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891), An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• "horror", in Charles du Fresne du Cange, Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)

• horrour
• horrur

Borrowed from Latin horror, horrorem.

horror oblique singular, f (oblique plural horrors, nominative singular horror, nominative plural horrors)

1. horror or terror

• English: horror
• Middle French: horreur
  • French: horreur

Borrowed from English horror.

• IPA^(key): /ˈxɔr.rɔr/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɔrrɔr
• Syllabification: hor‧ror

horror m inan

1. (colloquial) horror (something horrible; that which excites horror)
2. horror movie

   Synonym: film grozy

3. horror (literary genre)

• “horror”, in Wielki słownik języka polskiego‎^[3] (in Polish), Instytut Języka Polskiego PAN
• “horror”, in Polish dictionaries at PWN‎^[4] (in Polish)

Learned borrowing from Latin horrōrem.

• Rhymes: (Portugal, São Paulo) -oɾ, (Brazil) -oʁ
• Hyphenation: hor‧ror

horror m (plural horrores)

1. horror

   Synonyms: temor, terror

• “horror”, in Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa (in Portuguese), Lisbon: Priberam, 2008–2026

Unadapted borrowing from English horror.

horror m or f or n (indeclinable)

1. horror

horror n (plural horror)

1. horror

Borrowed from Latin horrorem.

Cf. also the popular Old Spanish horrura, inherited from a derivative of the Latin or with a change of suffix, and taking on the meaning of "dirtiness, filth, impurity, scum"; comparable to derivatives of horridus in other Romance languages,^[1] like Italian ordo, Old French ord, French ordure, Old Catalan hòrreu, horresa, Old Occitan orre, orrezeza, Romanian urdoare.

• IPA^(key): /oˈroɾ/ [oˈroɾ]

• Audio:

  (file)

• Rhymes: -oɾ
• Syllabification: ho‧rror

horror m (plural horrores)

1. horror; terror

   Synonyms: miedo, temor, terror

• “horror”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8.1, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 15 December 2025