monstrous
/ˈmɒnstrəs
/adjective
1Having the ugly or frightening appearance of a monster: monstrous, bug-eyed fish...
- She may have had a beautiful, attractive body but once the fan went down, you would see a horrible, gruesome, monstrous, ugly face.
- Overhead them was a huge, monstrous and extremely ugly bird drooling over them.
- Then, bursting out from behind the trees, the same monstrous face appeared beneath a dark hood.
Synonyms
grotesque, hideous, ugly, ghastly, gruesome, horrible, horrid, horrific, horrendous, horrifying, grisly, disgusting, repulsive, repellent, revolting, nightmarish, dreadful, frightening, terrifying, fearsome, freakish, malformed, misshapen, unnatural, abnormal, mutant, miscreated
rare teratoid
2Inhumanly or outrageously evil or wrong: he wasn’t lovable, he was monstrous and violent it is a monstrous waste of money...
- These bogus safety issues and courses are a monstrous waste of money.
- To those involved in any way with this monstrous evil, I say to you that this is your first and only chance.
- There was something incredibly monstrous about the inhuman way it could not be stopped.
Synonyms
appalling, abhorrent, heinous, evil, wicked, abominable, terrible, horrible, dreadful, hideous, foul, vile;
outrageous, shocking, disgraceful, scandalous, atrocious;
villainous, nasty, ghastly, odious, loathsome, shameful, infamous, nefarious, iniquitous, unspeakable, intolerable, contemptible, despicable, vicious, cruel, savage, brutish, bestial, barbaric, barbarous, base, inhuman, depraved, fiendish, devilish, diabolical, satanic, ruthless, merciless
British informal beastly
rare egregious, flagitious
3Extraordinarily and dauntingly large: the monstrous tidal wave swamped the surrounding countryside...
- I stood there in the middle of the hall watching a huge - enormous - monstrous suitcase.
- Charlie's dad is an immense, monstrous presence at the centre of the film.
- A beautiful dive at 20m, I saw huge coral formations and monstrous sea fans.
Synonyms
huge, enormous, massive, great, gigantic, giant, colossal, mammoth, vast, immense, tremendous, mighty, stupendous, monumental, epic, prodigious, mountainous, titanic, towering, elephantine, king-sized, king-size, gargantuan, Herculean, Brobdingnagian, substantial
informal mega, monster, whopping, whopping great, thumping, thumping great, humongous, jumbo, hulking
British informal whacking, whacking great, ginormous
Derivatives
monstrously
/ adverb ...- The proposals - which were widely condemned as monstrously intrusive and constituting a gross infringement of privacy and liberty - have been withdrawn for further consultation.
- In the very next paragraph, he remarks: ‘It is monstrously premature to think that the threat has passed.
- The public sector is still monstrously big and squeezes out the private sector.
monstrousness
- The Nazi crimes, it seems to me, explode the limits of the law; and that is precisely what constitutes their monstrousness.
- Probably they have become numb to the monstrousness of their actions.
- The word homicide is wholly inadequate to convey the monstrousness of such a culture.
Origin
Late Middle English (in the sense 'strange or unnatural'): from Old French monstreux or Latin monstrosus, from monstrum (see monster). Current senses date from the 16th century.