/hawr"euhr, hor"-/ , n.
1. an overwhelming and painful feeling caused by something frightfully shocking, terrifying, or revolting; a shuddering fear: to shrink back from a mutilated corpse in horror.
2. anything that causes such a feeling: killing, looting, and other horrors of war.
3. such a feeling as a quality or condition: to have known the horror of slow starvation.
4. a strong aversion; abhorrence: to have a horror of emotional outbursts.
5. Informal. something considered bad or tasteless: That wallpaper is a horror. The party was a horror.
6. horrors , Informal.
a. See delirium tremens .
b. extreme depression.
adj.
7. inspiring or creating horror, loathing, aversion, etc.: The hostages told horror stories of their year in captivity.
8. centered upon or depicting terrifying or macabre events: a horror movie.
interj.
9. horrors , (used as a mild expression of dismay, surprise, disappointment, etc.)
[ 1520-30; horror, equiv. to horr- (s. of horrere to bristle with fear; see HORRENDOUS) + -or -OR 1 ; r. ME orrour horror-, s. of horror ]
Syn. 1. dread, dismay, consternation. See terror. 4. loathing, antipathy, detestation, hatred, abomination.
Ant. 1. serenity. 4. attraction.