heinous
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\n \n Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for September 22, 2024 is:\n \n
\n \n\n heinous • \\HAY-nus\\ • adjective
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Heinous describes things\u2014such as acts, deeds, or crimes\u2014that are hatefully or shockingly evil, or in other words, deserving of hate or contempt.
\n\n// The former dictator will stand trial for the role he played in his government\u2019s heinous treatment of political dissidents.
\n\n\n \n \n\n Examples:
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\u201c\u2018I didn\u2019t say anything at the time,\u2019 Fyodor said. \u2018But I don\u2019t agree with you. I think killing people is wrong. It is always wrong. Even if you do something really awful or heinous. Nobody should get to kill you.\u2019\u201d \u2014 Brandon Taylor, The Late Americans: A Novel, 2023
\n \n \n\n Did you know?
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For eons, humans have contrasted love with hate and good with evil, putting love and good on one side, and hate and evil on the other. The association of hate with evil is baked into the etymology of heinous, which English gained directly from Anglo-French in the 14th century with the meaning we still know today; its source is the Anglo-French noun haine, meaning \u201chate.\u201d Haine in turn comes from a verb of Germanic origin, hair, also meaning \u201cto hate.\u201d (The similarity between this hair and the other hair is coincidental.) Chaucer\u2019s poem \u201cTroilus and Criseyde\u201d provides an early example of heinous in English: \u201cHe rang them out a story like a bell, against her foe who was called Polyphete, so heinous that men might on it spit.\u201d
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