a·troc·i·ty

(ə-trŏs′ĭ-tē)

n. pl. a·troc·i·ties

1. Appalling or atrocious condition, quality, or behavior; monstrousness.

2. An appalling or atrocious act, situation, or object, especially an act of unusual or illegal cruelty inflicted by an armed force on civilians or prisoners.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

atrocity

(əˈtrɒsɪtɪ)

n, pl -ties

1. behaviour or an action that is wicked or ruthless

2. the fact or quality of being atrocious

3. (usually plural) acts of extreme cruelty, esp against prisoners or civilians in wartime

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

a•troc•i•ty

(əˈtrɒs ɪ ti)

n., pl. -ties.

1. the quality or state of being atrocious.

2. an atrocious act, thing, or circumstance.

[1525–35; < Latin]

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

Noun	1.	atrocity - the quality of being shockingly cruel and inhumane atrociousness, barbarity, barbarousness, heinousness inhumaneness, inhumanity - the quality of lacking compassion or consideration for others
	2.	atrocity - an act of atrocious cruelty inhumanity cruelty, inhuman treatment - a cruel act; a deliberate infliction of pain and suffering barbarism, barbarity, brutality, savagery - a brutal barbarous savage act outrage - a wantonly cruel act enormity - an act of extreme wickedness

atrocity

noun

1. act of cruelty, wrong, crime, horror, offence, evil, outrage, outrage, cruelty, brutality, obscenity, wrongdoing, enormity, monstrosity, transgression, abomination, barbarity, villainy Those who committed this atrocity should be punished.

2. cruelty, wrong, horror, brutality, wrongdoing, enormity, savagery, ruthlessness, wickedness, inhumanity, infamy, transgression, barbarity, viciousness, villainy, baseness, monstrousness, heinousness, nefariousness, shockingness, atrociousness, fiendishness, barbarousness, grievousness, villainousness stomach-churning tales of atrocity and massacre

Collins Thesaurus of the English Language – Complete and Unabridged 2nd Edition. 2002 © HarperCollins Publishers 1995, 2002

atrocity

noun

1. The quality of passing all moral bounds:

atrociousness, enormity, heinousness, monstrousness.

2. The quality or state of being flagrant:

atrociousness, egregiousness, enormity, flagrance, flagrancy, flagrantness, glaringness, grossness, outrageousness, rankness.

3. A monstrous offense or evil:

enormity, monstrosity, outrage.

Translations

عَمَل وَحْشي، جَريمَه فَظيعَه

зверство

atrocitat

zvěrstvokrutost

grusomhed

Grausamkeit Abscheulichkeit Bestialität Gräuel

θηριωδία αγριότητα

atrocidad

atrocité horreur abomination

פשע נגד האנושות

atrocitás

grimmdarverk, ódæîi

atrocit...atrocità atto mostruoso

atrocitas

atrocitate

ukrutnosťzverstvo

canavarlıkvahşet

暴行

atrocity

[əˈtrɒsɪtɪ] N → atrocidad f

Collins Spanish Dictionary - Complete and Unabridged 8th Edition 2005 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1971, 1988 © HarperCollins Publishers 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2003, 2005

atrocity

[əˈtrɒsɪti] n → atrocité f

Collins English/French Electronic Resource. © HarperCollins Publishers 2005

atrocity

n → Grausamkeit f; (act also) → Gräueltat f

Collins German Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged 7th Edition 2005. © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1980 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1997, 1999, 2004, 2005, 2007

atrocity

[əˈtrɒsɪtɪ] n → atrocità f inv

Collins Italian Dictionary 1st Edition © HarperCollins Publishers 1995

atrocious

(əˈtrəuʃəs) adjective

1. very bad. Your handwriting is atrocious.

2. extremely cruel. an atrocious crime.

aˈtrociousness noun

atrocity (əˈtrosəti) noun

an extremely cruel and wicked act. The invading army committed many atrocities.

Mentioned in

References in classic literature

I blush, I burn, I shudder, while I pen the damnable atrocity.

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The curate, I found, was quite incapable of dis- cussion; this new and culminating atrocity had robbed him of all vestiges of reason or forethought.

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"Verily do I believe we owe our victory to you alone; so do not mar the record of a noble deed by wanton acts of atrocity."

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The rest of the monkey orchestra merely shivered in apprehension of what next atrocity should be perpetrated.

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But, in fact, an instance of similar barbarity is to be found nearer home, and occurs in the annals of Queen Mary's time, containing so many other examples of atrocity. Every reader must recollect, that after the fall of the Catholic Church, and the Presbyterian Church Government had been established by law, the rank, and especially the wealth, of the Bishops, Abbots, Priors, and so forth, were no longer vested in ecclesiastics, but in lay impropriators of the church revenues, or, as the Scottish lawyers called them, titulars of the temporalities of the benefice, though having no claim to the spiritual character of their predecessors in office.

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By some mysterious law of nature you invariably guess wrong, and are thereupon regarded by all the relatives and friends as a mixture of fool and knave, the enormity of alluding to a male babe as "she" being only equaled by the atrocity of referring to a female infant as "he".

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Some fine day Gryphus will commit some atrocity. I am losing my patience, since I have lost the joy and company of Rosa, and especially since I have lost my tulip.

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He will no more than pay the price of listening to a lecture for any atrocity he commits."

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Slurk, of course, read the GAZETTE; and each gentleman audibly expressed his contempt at the other's compositions by bitter laughs and sarcastic sniffs; whence they proceeded to more open expressions of opinion, such as 'absurd,' 'wretched,' 'atrocity,' 'humbug,'

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He then asked me, suddenly, if I had observed any thing peculiar at the scene of the atrocity.

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The Baltimore Amer- ican, of March 17, 1845, relates a similar case of atrocity, perpetrated with similar impunity--as fol- lows:--"~Shooting a slave.~--We learn, upon the au- thority of a letter from Charles county, Maryland, received by a gentleman of this city, that a young man, named Matthews, a nephew of General Mat- thews, and whose father, it is believed, holds an of- fice at Washington, killed one of the slaves upon his father's farm by shooting him.

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Once ashore he kept out of sight of the two-story atrocity that bore the legend "Hotel" to lure unsuspecting wayfarers to its multitudinous discomforts.

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