Atrocity

/əˈtɹɒsɪti/ · noun

Meaning

(countable) An extremely cruel act; a horrid act of injustice..

Definitions by Sense

1. (countable) An extremely cruel act; a horrid act of injustice.
2. (uncountable) The quality or state of being atrocious; enormous wickedness; extreme criminality or cruelty.
3. (countable) An object considered to be extremely unattractive or undesirable.

Example Sentences

to carry out / commit / perpetrate an atrocity

The regime is guilty of mass atrocities including forced displacement and the use of chemical weapons.

[…] it seemed an atrocity or cruelty to Narses a good General, to take punishment of innoxious Hostages:

It was impossible for the convention to suffer the crimes they had committed, and the still greater atrocities which they had meditated, to pass unnoticed.

This devilish outrage, this fiendish murder, produced, as it was well calculated to do, a tremendous sensation. […] The atrocity roused my old master, and he spoke out, in reprobation of it;

“Any delay in arresting the assassin,” I observed, “might give him time to perpetrate some fresh atrocity.”

The United Kingdom, the United States and the Soviet Union have received from many quarters evidence of atrocities, massacres and cold-blooded mass executions which are being perpetrated by Hitlerite forces in many of the countries they have overrun and from which they are now being steadily expelled.

1553, John Bradford, letter, in Miles Coverdale (ed.), Certain Most Godly, Fruitful, and Comfortable letters, London: John Day, 1564, pp. 481-482, Thys wil I muse on, & way with my self, [tha]t I may dulye knowe, both in me and in al other things, the atrocitie and bitternesse of synne which dwelleth in me, & so may the more hartely geue ouer my self wholy to [th]e lord Christ my Sauiour,

Synonyms for atrocity

Antonyms for atrocity

Related Words

Word Forms

• atrocities

Usage Notes

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