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For eons, humans have contrasted love with hate and good with evil, putting love and good on one side, and hate and evil on the other. The association of hate with evil is baked into the etymology of heinous, which English gained directly from Anglo-French in the 14th century with the meaning we still know today; its source is the Anglo-French noun haine, meaning “hate.” Haine in turn comes from a verb of Germanic origin, hair, also meaning “to hate.” (The similarity between this hair and the other hair is coincidental.) Chaucer’s poem “Troilus and Criseyde” provides an early example of heinous in English: “He rang them out a story like a bell, against her foe who was called Polyphete, so heinous that men might on it spit.”
Examples of heinous in a Sentence
Vibe, May 2001
The verdict … also defined rape for the first time as a crime against humanity, one of the most heinous crimes. The tribunal has previously tried cases involving rape, but defined the rape as torture.
—Marlise Simons, New York Times, 23 Feb. 2001
It's hard enough to figure out what a defendant was thinking when he committed the heinous and bizarre act that has made him a candidate for the insanity defense. And state of mind is what the insanity defense is all about.
—Laura Mansnerus, New York Times Book Review, 26 Oct. 1997
These murders were especially heinous.
people accused of committing heinous crimes
Dennis Harvey, Variety, 27 June 2025
One reason the Twins were so down and out was a heinous 17-game stretch by the pitching staff, which yielded nine runs eight times.
—Dan Hayes, New York Times, 27 June 2025
These people were convicted of very heinous murders with a sentence of life without parole.
—Stepheny Price, FOXNews.com, 8 June 2025
Their Senate Bill 672, a proposal by Los Angeles Democrats, would open the prison doors for over 1,600 inmates convicted of the most heinous murders, all of them serving life without the possibility of parole.
—Brian W Jones, Oc Register, 3 June 2025
See All Example Sentences for heinous
Cite this Entry
“Heinous.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/heinous. Accessed 10 Jul. 2025.
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heinous
adjective
Legal Definition
heinous
adjective
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