odious

From Middle English odious, from Old French odieus, from Latin odiōsus, from odium (“hate”).

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈəʊ.di.əs/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈoʊ.di.əs/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -əʊdiəs

odious (comparative more odious, superlative most odious)

1. Arousing or meriting strong dislike, aversion, or intense displeasure.

   Scrubbing the toilets in the bar at the end of a Saturday night is an odious task.

   • c. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Othello, the Moore of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene ii], lines 179-80:

     You told a lie, an odious damned lie: / Upon my soul, a lie, a wicked lie!

   • 1750, “Theodora”, Thomas Morell (lyrics), George Frideric Handel (music)‎:

     I own no crime, unless it be a crime to've hindered you from perpetrating that which would have made you odious to mankind, at least the fairest half.

   • 1818, Mary Shelley, chapter 6, in Frankenstein‎, archived from the original on 8 May 2013:

     He looks upon study as an odious fetter; his time is spent in the open air, climbing the hills or rowing on the lake.

   • 1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 2, in The History of Pendennis. […], volumes (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1849–1850, →OCLC:

     He always detested the trade, and it was only necessity, and the offer of his mother’s brother, a London apothecary of low family, into which Pendennis’s father had demeaned himself by marrying, that forced John Pendennis into so odious a calling.

   • 1903 December 26, A[rthur] Conan Doyle, “The Adventure of the Solitary Cyclist”, in The Return of Sherlock Holmes, New York, N.Y.: McClure, Phillips & Co., published February 1905, →OCLC:

     "He was a dreadful person, a bully to everyone else, but to me something infinitely worse. He made odious love to me, boasted of his wealth, said that if I married him I would have the finest diamonds in London, and finally, when I would have nothing to do with him, he seized me in his arms one day after dinner—he was hideously strong—and he swore that he would not let me go until I had kissed him."

• detestable, hated, reviled, unsavory, contemptible, despicable

• iodous