Library / English Dictionary

ABHOR

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

Irregular inflected forms: abhorred    , abhorring   

 I. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Find repugnant

Example:

She abhors cats

Synonyms:

abhor; abominate; execrate; loathe

Classified under:

Verbs of feeling

Hypernyms (to "abhor" is one way to...):

detest; hate (dislike intensely; feel antipathy or aversion towards)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Somebody ----s somebody

Sentence examples:

Sam cannot abhor Sue

They abhor moving

Sam and Sue abhor the movie

Derivation:

abhorrence (hate coupled with disgust)

abhorrent (offensive to the mind)

abhorrer (a signer of a 1679 address to Charles II in which those who petitioned for the reconvening of parliament were condemned and abhorred)

Credits

 Context examples: 

We both abhor suspense.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

Cursed be the day, abhorred devil, in which you first saw light!

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

Oh! My dear! It would have looked so particular; and you know how I abhor doing that.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

In the midst of my pain of heart and frantic effort of principle, I abhorred myself.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Willoughby, he, whom only half an hour ago she had abhorred as the most worthless of men, Willoughby, in spite of all his faults, excited a degree of commiseration for the sufferings produced by them, which made her think of him as now separated for ever from her family, with a tenderness, a regret, rather in proportion, as she soon acknowledged within herself—to his wishes than to his merits.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

Glumdalclitch was prevailed on to be of the company, very much against her inclination, for she was naturally tender-hearted: and, as for myself, although I abhorred such kind of spectacles, yet my curiosity tempted me to see something that I thought must be extraordinary.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

They, in their different homes, and their different ways, might be looking back on it with pleasure; but in her view it was a morning more completely misspent, more totally bare of rational satisfaction at the time, and more to be abhorred in recollection, than any she had ever passed.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

Thus I relieve thee, my creator, he said, and placed his hated hands before my eyes, which I flung from me with violence; thus I take from thee a sight which you abhor.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

How I do still abhor—He ground his teeth and was silent: he arrested his step and struck his boot against the hard ground.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

But Marianne abhorred all concealment where no real disgrace could attend unreserve; and to aim at the restraint of sentiments which were not in themselves illaudable, appeared to her not merely an unnecessary effort, but a disgraceful subjection of reason to common-place and mistaken notions.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)