horror Meaning, Definition & Usage

  1. noun intense and profound fear
  2. noun something that inspires dislike; something horrible
    • the painting that others found so beautiful was a horror to him
  3. noun intense aversion
    repulsion; revulsion; repugnance.

WordNet

Hor"ror noun
Etymology
Formerly written horrour.
L. horror, fr. horrere to bristle, to shiver, to tremble with cold or dread, to be dreadful or terrible; cf. Skr. hsh to bristle.
Definitions
  1. A bristling up; a rising into roughness; tumultuous movement. Archaic
    Such fresh horror as you see driven through the wrinkled waves. Chapman.
  2. A shaking, shivering, or shuddering, as in the cold fit which precedes a fever; in old medical writings, a chill of less severity than a rigor, and more marked than an algor.
  3. A painful emotion of fear, dread, and abhorrence; a shuddering with terror and detestation; the feeling inspired by something frightful and shocking.
    How could this, in the sight of heaven, without horrors of conscience be uttered? Milton.
  4. That which excites horror or dread, or is horrible; gloom; dreariness.
    Breathes a browner horror on the woods. Pope.

Webster 1913