heinous

Pronunciation: /ˈheɪnəs/

The English word “heinous” has 2 meanings listed here.

adjective

Totally reprehensible.
Bad, evil or villainous.

Etymology

From Middle English heynous, from Anglo-Norman hainous, heinous (compare French haineux) from Old French haïr, hadir (“to hate”) (compare Old French en-hadir (“to become filled with hate”)), from Frankish *hattjan (“to hate”) (compare Middle English hetien). More at hate. The fluctuation between pronunciations with /eɪ/ and /iː/ is old; the former reflects adoption of an unmonophthongised…

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More English words

Heinie
heinie
Heinleinesque
Heinleinian
heinously
heinousness
heinrichite
heintzite

About this dictionary

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Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.