Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Appalling |
AppallingAdjective1. Causing consternation; "appalling conditions". Noun1. An experience that appalls; "is it better to view the appalling or merely hear of it?". Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "appalling" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1808. (references) |
Synonym: AppallingSynonym: dismaying (adj). (additional references) |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Pain | Shocking, terrific, grim, appalling, crushing; dreadful, fearful, frightful; thrilling, tremendous, dire; heart-breaking, heart-rending, heart-wounding, heart-corroding, heart-sickening; harrowing, rending. |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
Crosswords: Appalling |
| English words defined with "appalling": appallingly. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "appalling": Rapids, Rough Music. (references) |
| Etymologies containing "appalling": Appall. (references) |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | I never guess: it is an appalling habit, destructive to the logical faculty (The Seven-Per-Cent Solution; writing credit: Arthur Conan Doyle; Nicholas Meyer) Simpson! I've been reviewing your performance record, and it is appalling! It says here that you caused 17 meltdowns (The Simpsons; writing credit: Artur Brauner; Paul Hengge) Yes, that's exactly the most appalling thing you could have said (Buffy the Vampire Slayer; writing credit: Doreen Spicer) He'd be an appalling hazard to the whole escape (The Great Escape; writing credit: James Clavell) The appalling thing about fascism is that you've got to use fascist methods to get rid of it. (It Happened Here; writing credit: Kevin Brownlow ; Andrew Mollo) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title |
Books |
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Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit |  | Appalling calamity at Johnstown, Pa., on Friday, Sept. 14th, caused by the falling of a railroad bridge crowded with the citizens of the town, during the visit of President Johnson and suite - four persons killed and over 350 wounded / sketched by our sp. Credit: Library of Congress. |
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits. | |||
| Author | Quotation |
Arthur Miller | I'm the end of the line; absurd and appalling as it may seem, serious New York theater has died in my lifetime. |
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. | We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | |
| Author | Date | Quotation |
Winston S. Churchill | 1946 | The fear of them alone might easily have been used to enforce totalitarian systems upon the free democratic world, with consequences appalling to human imagination. ("Iron Curtain" Speech) |
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. | 1963 | So we have come here today to dramatize an appalling condition. (Delivered on the steps at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. on August 28, 1934) |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| Title | Author | Quote |
Les Miserables | Hugo, Victor | Fantine had become appalling. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Business | If the stricter laws and regulations are coupled with tougher enforcement, then the U.S. and other foreign investors can look forward to a growing market for years to come. China's appalling environmental protection record may change rapidly due to the fact that pollution has become so bad that government officials can no longer avoid it. According to the 1997 World Bank report Clear Water, Blue Shies, pollution costs China the equivalent of 8% of its GDP annually. (references) | |
Human Rights | Cameroon | U.N. Special Rapporteur Rodley described prison conditions in the country as "universally appalling." Rodley also reported that "overcrowding, unhygienic sanitation, lack of health care, and shortage of food, reportedly are the main failings in the Cameroonian prison system. (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| Speaker | Phrase(s) |
Rush Limbaugh | One of the most appalling things about the coverage of the space shuttle accident has been the Democrats' attempt to exploit the tragedy for petty political gain. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Speaker | Term | Phrase(s) |
Harry S. Truman | 1945-1953 | At the threshold of every problem which confronts us today in international affairs is the appalling devastation, hunger, sickness, and pervasive human misery that mark so many areas of the world. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| "Appalling" is generally used as an adjective (general or positive) -- approximately 99.50% of the time. "Appalling" is used about 995 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Adjective (general or positive) | 99.5% | 990 | 7,415 |
| Lexical Verb (-ing form) | 0.5% | 5 | 157,705 |
| Total | 100.00% | 995 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expression using "appalling": appalling working conditions. Additional references. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day |
appalling | 2 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Language | Translations for "appalling"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Albanian | tmerrues (awe inspiring, awesome, deterrent, dreadful, fearful, grisly, horrific, lurid, monstrous, terrifying), i tmerrshëm (awesome, awful, Creese, damnable, darn, deadly, deuced, dire, direful, eldritch, enormous, frightful, gruesome, hideous, horrible, horrid, infernal, macabre, parlous, perishing, redoubtable, redoubted, sad, scary, terrible, terrific, towering, tragic, tremendous). (various references) | |
Arabic | مروع (alarmed, awful, dreadful, frightened, frightening, frightful, ghastly, grisly, gruesome, horrible, horrific, horrified, horrifying, macabre, panic stricken, scared, shocked, shocking, startled, startling, terrified, terrifying, terror stricken, terrorized), مرعب (alarming, awesome, dreadful, frightening, frightful, hair raising, horrible, horrific, horrifying, terrible, terrific, terrifying). (various references) | |
Bulgarian | ужасен (aghast, awful, bloodcurdling, deadly, desperate, deuced, devastating, dire, direful, dreadful, eldritch, execrable, fearful, fearsome, frantic, frightful, furious, ghastly, great, grievous, grisly, gruesome, horrible, horrid, horror-stricken, lurid, macabre, miserable, morbid, murderous, planet-stricken, planet-struck, precious, sad, septic, terrible, terrific, towering, tremendous, unholy, unmentionable, vicious, wretched), потресен (all shook-up, horrified, shaken, shocked, shook-up). (various references) | |
Chinese | 骇人. (various references) | |
Czech | příšerný (atrocious, blinding, chronic, creepy, damnable, dreadful, excruciating, fearful, fiendish, ghastly, grisly, gruesome, horrendous, terrible, terrific, unholy, unspeakable, villainous, weird), otřesný (atrocious, awful, fearful, fiendish, ghastly, harrowing, hateful, staggering, ugly, villainous), hrozný (abysmal, atrocious, awful, damnable, dire, dreadful, excruciating, fearful, fearsome, formidable, frightful, ghastly, grim, hateful, hellish, horrible, mortal, terrible, terrific, tremendous), dìsivý (awesome, bloodcurdling, eerie, eery, frightening, horrifying, nightmarish). (various references) | |
Finnish | pöyristyttävä (horrifying, revolting), kauhistava (ghastly, terrifying). (various references) | |
French | affreux, révoltant, effroyable, consternant, épouvantable. (various references) | |
German | entsetzlich (abysmal, abysmally, awful, bloodcurdling, dire, dreadful, excruciating, frightful, gruesome, harrowing, hideous, horrendous, horrendously, horrible, horribly, horrid, horridly, horrific, horrifying, outrageous, racking, shocking, shockingly, sickening, terrible, unspeakable). (various references) | |
Greek | φρικιαστικός (chilling), φρικτόσ (atrocious, dire, direful, dismals, ghastly, gruesome, hideous, horrible), τρομακτικόσ (alarming, scary, terrific, tremendous), τρομακτικός (fearsome, scary, terrifying). (various references) | |
Hebrew | משומם (appalled, startled), מחרי" (dreadful, grim, grisly, horrible, horrific, macabre), מ""ים (astounding, overwhelming, staggering, stunning, stupendous). (various references) | |
Hungarian | visszataszító (abominable, distasteful, forbidding, foul, galoot, hideous, obnoxious, rank, repellent, repelling, repugnant, repulsive, repulsiveness, sickening, sleaze), szörnyű (dire, dreadful, egregious, fearsome, ghastly, grisly, gruesome, horrible, horrid, morbid, nefandous, terrible, terrific), megdöbbentõ (appaling, astonishing, shocking), megdöbbentő (astonishing, flabbergasting, shocking, staggering, startling), ijesztõ (appaling, creepy, forbidding, frightening, frightful, horrific, startling), ijesztő (awful, daunting, dread, dreadful, fearsome, forbidding, grim, gruesome, redoubtable, scary, startling, unearthly). (various references) | |
Indonesian | menggemparkan (appall), mengejutkan (shocking, startle). (various references) | |
Italian | atroce (atrocious, dire, dreadful, excruciating, flagitious, grievous, heinous, murderous, outrageous, savage, terrible), tremendo (awful, dreadful, formidably, frightful, terrible), terrificante (appaling, frightening, terrifying), terribile (abysmal, appaling, awful, dire, direful, dreadful, fearful, fearsome, gruesome, horrible, splitting, terrible, terrific, tremendous), spaventoso (appaling, awesome, awful, dire, direful, dismal, dreadful, dreary, fearful, frightening, ghastly, grim, grisly, horrible, nasty, terrific), immane (appaling, enormous, tremendous). (various references) | |
Japanese Kanji | 酸鼻 (awful, deep sorrow, extreme pain), 大それた (inordinate, monstrous, outrageous). (various references) | |
Japanese Katakana | さ"び (adoration, awful, deep sorrow, extreme pain, glorification, praise), いそれた (inordinate, monstrous, outrageous). (various references) | |
Korean | 지독한 (Awful, Dashed). (various references) | |
Manx | agglagh (apprehensive, awful, terrifying, timorous). (various references) | |
Pig Latin | appallingay.(various references) | |
Portuguese | apavorante (appaling, horrifying), temível (appaling, redoubtable, redoubted), espantoso (appaling, astonishing, astounding, colossal, dreadful, fearsome, frightful, phenomenal, surprising, terrible, terrific, unbelievable, wonderful, wondrous). (various references) | |
Romanian | groaznic (awful, awfully, baleful, desperate, dire, dreadful, foul, frightful, ghastly, grim, groovy, gruesome, horrendous, horrent, horrible, horribly, horrid, howling, lousy, miserable, miserably, monstrous, sad, scary, shocking, terrible, terribly, vile), înspãimântãtor (awsome, dread, dreadful, fearful, formidable, frightful, frightfully, ghastly, ghostlike, horrible, horrid, howling, terrible, terrific, tremendous, unearthly), îngrozitor (abominable, awful, awfully, beastly, desperate, direful, dreadful, grisly, hideous, horrible, shocking, terrible, terribly, terrific, tremendous). (various references) | |
Russian | ужасный (atrocious, awful, blood-curding, chilling, chronic, damnable, damned, desperate, dire, direful, dreadful, fearful, formidable, frightful, ghastly, grisly, gruelling, gruesome, hair raising, hair-raising, hairy, heinous, horrendous, horrible, horrid, macabre, perishing, spooky, terrible, tragic, unearthy). (various references) | |
Serbo-Croatian | užasan (atrocious, awful, dreadful, frightful, horrible, shocking, terrible). (various references) | |
Spanish | espantoso (amazing, appaling, dread, dreadful, frightening, frightful, gruesome, hideous, nerve racking, scarey, scary, shocking, stark, terrifying). (various references) | |
Swedish | skrämmande (fearful, fearsome, scary), ohygglig (atrocious, awful, horrible, monstrous), fasaväckande (horrific, horrifying), förskräcklig (abysmal, apalling, desperate, dire, dreadful, fearful, fearsome, frightful, gruesome, horrendous, horrible, shocking, terrible, tremendous, unholy). (various references) | |
Thai | ซึ่งทำให้ตกใจ. (various references) | |
Turkish | müthiş (almighty, awful, bang up, beastly, colossal, deadly, devastating, devilish, dire, direful, fabulous, fearful, filthy, formidable, frightful, gee-whiz, helluva, prodigious, ripping, smashing, splendid, splendiferous, stunning, stupendous, superb, swell, tearing, terrible, terrific, thundering, unco, wild), korkunç (awesome, awful, cruel, desperate, dire, direful, disastrous, disgusting, dreadfull, eldritch, fearful, fearsome, formidable, frightening, frightful, ghastly, ghoulish, gory, grim, grisly, gruesome, haircurling, hair-raiser, hellish, hideous, horrendous, horrible, horrid, horrific, lurid, monstrous, redoubtable, scary, shocking, sickening, terrible, terrific, terrifying), dehşet verici (awesome, frightening, grisly, gruesome, horror), berbat (abominable, abysmal, accursed, accurst, atrocious, awful, bad, badly, beastly, bum, chronic, crappy, dashed, destroyed, deuced, devilish, disgusting, dread, dreadfull, egregious, execrable, fierce, flagitious, frightful, ghastly, grotty, hell, hell of, helluva, horrible, horrid, indifferent, infamous, infernal, ropy, rotten, screwed, shocking, sickening, spoilt, sticky, stinking, terrible, ungodly, unsavory, unsavoury, vicious, vile, villainous, violent, wretched). (various references) | |
Ukrainian | страхітливий (frightful, horrendous, horrific, prodigious, unnatural, whopping), жахливий (abominable, abysmal, almighty, atrocious, awesome, awful, blinking, blood-curdling, blue, chronic, damnable, damned, deadly, desperate, deuced, devilish, dire, direful, dreadful, eerie, eery, eldritch, enormous, fearful, fearsome, ferocious, flagrant, frightening, frightful, grievous, gruesome, horrible, horrific, iniquitous, macabre, monstrous, plaguy, scarey, scary, towering, tragic, tremendous, ungodly, wretched), приголомшливий (astounding, fabulous, mindbending, overpowering, ripping, shocking, staggering, startling, stunning, way out). (various references) | |
Vietnamese | l m thất kinh; kinh khủng (appallingly), l m kinh sợ (appallingly, dread), l m kinh hoảng (appallingly), l m kinh hãi (appallingly, scary). (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "appalling": appallingly. (additional references) | |
| |
"Appalling" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: Alpallana, apaling, apalling, appaelling, appalang, appaling, appauling, appaulling, appealling, applaing, appolling. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "appalling" (pronounced upô"ling) |
| 4 | -ô" l i ng | balling, brawling, calling, crawling, galling, hauling, installing, mothballing, recalling, sprawling, stalling, walling. |
| 3 | -l i ng | annealing, appealing, ailing, ambling, angling, assailing, assembling, babbling, backpedaling, baffling, bailing, baling, bankrolling, barreling, battling, beguiling, belittling, Belling, bicycling, billing, blackmailing, boggling, boiling, Bolling, bottling, bowling, bristling, broiling, bubbling, buckling, bugling, bumbling, bundling, bungling, burgling, burling, bustling, cackling, cajoling, canceling, cancelling, Carling, ceiling, channeling, chilling, chortling, chronicling, chuckling, circling, coddling, commingling, compelling, compiling, concealing, consoling, controlling, cooling, corralling, counseling, countervailing, coupling, cowling, crackling, cradling, crippling, crumbling, cuddling, culling, curling, curtailing, cycling, dabbling, dangling, darling, dawdling, dazzling, dealing, decoupling, derailing, detailing, Dialing, disabling, disgruntling, dismantling, dispelling, dissembling, distilling, doling, doubling, dribbling, drilling, drizzling, drooling, duckling, dueling, dulling, dumpling, dwelling, dwindling, earthling, emailing, embezzling, empaneling, enabling, encircling, enrolling, entailing, entangling, entitling, equaling, excelling, expelling, extolling, failing, falling, feeling, felling, fiddling, filing, filling, fizzling, flailing, fledgling, foaling, foiling, fondling, fooling, forestalling, foretelling, fouling, foundling, freewheeling, fueling, fuelling, fulfilling, fumbling, funneling, gambling, giggling, gobbling, grappling, Grayling, grilling, groundling, groveling, growling, grueling, grumbling, gurgling, guzzling, haggling, hailing, handling, hassling, healing, heckling, helling, hilling, hobbling, holing, howling, huddling, humbling, hurdling, hurling, hurtling, hustling, idling, imperiling, inhaling, initialing, inkling, instilling, intermingling, jailing, jiggling, jostling, juggling, Keeling, killing, kindling, kneeling, labeling, leveling, lolling, Lulling, mailing, mangling, Marling, marshaling, meddling, Melling, middling, milling, mingling, mishandling, mislabeling, misspelling, modeling, mottling, muddling, mulling, mumbling, muscling, nailing, needling, nestling, nibbling, nonruling, oiling, outselling, overbilling, overhauling, overkilling, overruling, overselling, paddling, paneling, panhandling, paralleling, parboiling, parceling, paroling, patrolling, pearling, pedaling, peddling, peeling, pickling, piddling, piling, Pilling, Pindling, poling, polling, pooling, prevailing, profiling, propelling, prowling, pulling, pummeling, puzzling, quadrupling, quarreling, quelling, quibbling, quilling, Quisling, railing, rambling, rankling, rappelling, rattling, raveling, rebelling, reconciling, recycling, redoubling, reeling, refueling, regaling, rekindling, remodeling, repealing, repelling, rescheduling, reselling, resembling, reshuffling, retailing, retelling, retooling, revealing, reveling, ridiculing, Riesling, rifling, rilling, rippling, rivaling, roiling, rolling, rototilling, ruffling, ruling, rumbling, rustling, saddling, sailing, sampling, Sandling, sapling, scaling, scheduling, Schilling, schooling, scowling, scrambling, scribbling, scuttling, sealing, seedling, Seeling, selling, settling, shelling, shilling, shoveling, shriveling, shuffling, shuttling, sibling, signaling, signalling, singling, sizzling, skilling, smelling, smiling, smuggling, snarling, Snelling, snowballing, sparkling, Sparling, spelling, spilling, spiraling, spiralling, spoiling, sprinkling, squabbling, squealing, stapling, starling, startling, stealing, stenciling, sterling, stifling, stockpiling, stonewalling, storytelling, straddling, strangling, strickling, stripling, strolling, struggling, stumbling, styling, suckling, surveilling, swashbuckling, swelling, swilling, swindling, swirling, swiveling, tabling, tackling, tailing, tangling, telling, thrilling, throttling, Tilling, tingling, tinkling, toddling, toggling, toiling, tolling, tooling, toppling, totaling, totalling, toweling, trailing, trampling, traveling, travelling, trembling, trickling, trifling, trilling, tripling, trolling, troubling, tumbling, tunneling, twiddling, twinkling, twirling, unappealing, unavailing, unbundling, underling, underselling, unfailing, unfeeling, unfurling, unraveling, unsettling, unsmiling, untangling, unveiling, unwilling, veiling, waffling, waggling, wailing, warbling, weakling, welling, whaling, wheeling, whirling, whistling, whittling, wholesaling, wiggling, wiling, willing, wobbling, wrangling, wrestling, wrinkling, yearling, yelling, yodeling. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "a-a-g-i-l-l-n-p-p" | |
-2 letters: lapping, paginal, palling, papilla. | |
-3 letters: agnail, appall, paling, pallia, palpal, papain, plagal. | |
-4 letters: again, alang, algal, algin, align, apian, aping, appal, glial, lagan, lanai, lapin, liana, liang, ligan, linga, pagan, palpi, panga, papal, pipal, plain. | |
-5 letters: agin, alan, alga, anal, anga, anil, gain, gala, gall, gill, glia, lain, lang, ling, lipa, nail, nill, nipa. | |
| Words containing the letters "a-a-g-i-l-l-n-p-p" | |
+2 letters: appallingly, apparelling, appealingly. | |
+3 letters: wallpapering. | |
+4 letters: unappealingly. | |
+5 letters: clapperclawing. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Modern | 5. Usage: Commercial 6. Images: Photo Album 7. Quotations: Familiar 8. Quotations: Historic | 9. Quotations: Fiction 10. Quotations: Non-fiction 11. Quotations: Spoken 12. Quotations: Speeches | 13. Usage Frequency 14. Expressions 15. Expressions: Internet 16. Translations: Modern | 17. Derivations 18. Rhymes 19. Anagrams 20. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
