heinous

adjective

Definition of heinousnext
as in horrific
very bad or evil; deserving of hate or contempt These murders were especially heinous. the heinous brutality of the attack

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Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of heinous No Muslim can even dare to think of committing such a heinous [act]. — Mark Osborne, CBS News, 25 Sep. 2026 Hitler and his Nazis committed the most heinous crimes against humanity, including the extermination of six million Jews, and more than three million non-Jews, because of the Aryan supremacy ideology. — Letters To The Editor, The Orlando Sentinel, 23 Sep. 2026 Two juries in Chicago and New York City convicted Kelly of a series of heinous crimes involving minors and child pornography. — Nancy Dillon, Rolling Stone, 21 Sep. 2026 In addition to the lack of concrete evidence, the prosecution had to work against the notion at the time that a woman could not feasibly commit such a heinous crime. — Lynsey Eidell, PEOPLE, 17 Sep. 2026 See All Example Sentences for heinous
Recent Examples of Synonyms for heinous
  1. horrific
  2. gruesome
  3. sickening
  4. shocking
  5. disgusting
  6. terrible
  7. horrible
  8. ugly
Adjective
  • What followed was a horrific night of physical and mental spousal abuse, which Adams describes in searing, emotional prose.
    — Hadley Hall Meares, Vanity Fair, 20 Oct. 2026
  • Recently, Wahid was the lead defense attorney in the death penalty case of a Miami man who pleaded guilty to the horrific triple homicide of his estranged wife and her two young daughters.
    — Lauren Costantino, Miami Herald, 20 Oct. 2026
Definition of horrific
Adjective
  • Then there is Gemini, whose brief tenure as a public company has been simply gruesome.
    — Jeff John Roberts, Fortune, 19 Oct. 2026
  • Lechner was a member of the 75th Rangers in Somalia and suffered a gruesome gunshot wound to his tibia.
    — David Hookstead OutKick, FOXNews.com, 15 Oct. 2026
Definition of gruesome
Adjective
  • Hell, even recurring characters drop off without so much as the courtesy of a sickening demise.
    — Ben Travers, IndieWire, 13 Oct. 2026
  • Hersh was held hostage for 328 sickening, agonizing, and starving days until his captors executed him with five other young and luminous people in a tunnel underneath Gaza.
    — Rachel Goldberg-Polin, Time, 6 Oct. 2026
Definition of sickening
Adjective
  • The mother of a toddler who was found breathing in a hospital morgue hours after being pronounced dead is speaking out about the shocking incident.
    — ABC News, ABC News, 22 Oct. 2026
  • Sunday’s shocking loss to the Arizona Cardinals dropped Los Angeles to 2-4, and, suddenly, a team that entered the season with Super Bowl aspirations is fighting to stay in the playoff picture.
    — Andy Scholes, CNN Money, 22 Oct. 2026
Definition of shocking
Adjective
  • That’s likely to inspire either affection or immediate exhaustion, depending on your fondness for the infamously disgusting performance group.
    — Alison Foreman, IndieWire, 8 Oct. 2026
  • People tend to think of waste as trash, sewage, slag, manure and other seemingly useless or disgusting substances.
    — Edward D. Melillo, The Conversation, 30 Sep. 2026
Definition of disgusting
Adjective
  • The second storyline takes place in 2026 and concerns the murder of none other than Hal Jordan, who returned to Rushville as a social pariah after the terrible events that transpired 10 years before.
    — Jennifer Ouellette, ArsTechnica, 19 Oct. 2026
  • The Eagles are struggling, the Cowboys look terrible, and the Giants don’t have a quarterback.
    — OutKick, FOXNews.com, 19 Oct. 2026
Definition of terrible
Adjective
  • There’s a big data center that just came to my community not long ago and their community engagement was horrible, absolutely horrible.
    — Dustin DeSoto, Vox, 16 Oct. 2026
  • After the third day of squirting an experimental drug up his nose, Dylan Meetze felt horrible.
    — Amy Maxmen, Miami Herald, 15 Oct. 2026
Definition of horrible
Adjective
  • The bad and ugly, though, has been a long list in years past, but especially in this season.
    — Scott Thompson OutKick, FOXNews.com, 21 Oct. 2026
  • Hidden truths rear their ugly head, making for an increasingly tense triangle interaction.
    — Georg Szalai, HollywoodReporter, 20 Oct. 2026
Definition of ugly

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heinous
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Cite this Entry

“Heinous.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/heinous. Accessed 24 Oct. 2026.

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