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DIABOLICAL
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I. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Extremely evil or cruel; expressive of cruelty or befitting hell
Example:
unholy grimaces
Synonyms:
demonic; diabolic; diabolical; fiendish; hellish; infernal; satanic; unholy
Classified under:
Similar:
evil (morally bad or wrong)
Sense 2
Meaning:
Showing the cunning or ingenuity or wickedness typical of a devil
Example:
a mephistophelian glint in his eye
Synonyms:
devilish; diabolic; diabolical; mephistophelean; mephistophelian
Classified under:
Similar:
evil (morally bad or wrong)
Context examples:
It gave me almost a turn to see again one of the letters which I had seen on the Count's table before I knew of his diabolical plans.
(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)
In whatever capacity you ask after my employer, I beg, without offence to you, to limit my reply to this—that whatever his state of health may be, his appearance is foxy: not to say diabolical.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
The blow was a powerful one; only the diabolical quickness of the Count's leap back saved him.
(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)
This was the proximate cause, I suppose, of my dreaming about him, for what appeared to me to be half the night; and dreaming, among other things, that he had launched Mr. Peggotty's house on a piratical expedition, with a black flag at the masthead, bearing the inscription Tidd's Practice, under which diabolical ensign he was carrying me and little Em'ly to the Spanish Main, to be drowned.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
Besides, he called the Count 'lord and master,' and he may want to get out to help him in some diabolical way.
(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)
There was a diabolical wickedness in the idea great enough for the Count, and as a last chance I cried out:—"Shut the door; I shall wait till morning!" and covered my face with my hands to hide my tears of bitter disappointment.
(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)
He was now fixed on the far east of the northern shore, on the east of the southern shore, and on the south. The north and west were surely never meant to be left out of his diabolical scheme—let alone the City itself and the very heart of fashionable London in the south-west and west. I went back to Smollet, and asked him if he could tell us if any other boxes had been taken from Carfax.
(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)
