Talk:hideous

There seems to me that the word hideous has a positive connotation as in "the hideous nature of truth". Perhaps mistakenly, I connect the word with "hide" as we seem to want to hide what is hideous in ourselves. We often do not want to accept a truth that is hideous to look at, so we deny it, thus hide it from our own site.

I think that maybe my point is that the emotional aspect to the word is negative, but the essence of the word is connected to truth somehow therefore is neutral or even positive.

I would love to hear from others on this matter.

Thanks Jerry C — This comment was unsigned.

There is no etymological basis for your association - not that there is anything wrong with that. Some popular association may change the meaning of hideous away from its current meaning, as is already happening with the associated adverb hideously. DCDuring TALK 22:45, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

I noticed in the etymology all sorts of protogermanic and french and GodKnowsWhat far-fetched theories . To me as a greek speaker it is very clear the word is a direct derivative of the greek word ΧΥΔΑΙΟΣ, not only it sounds almost identical but it means the same and in both ancient and new greek. Regards Themistockles T

Well, that means nothing. Famously English "bad" and Persian "بد" sound exactly the same and mean exactly the same thing, but have no relation whatsoever. Numerous similar examples could be cited. And yours is far from that. The sense is only a very vague match as "hideous" originally meant "terrifying". Greek X doesn't become "h" in western languages, but "ch". Finally the history of the word shows no connection with Greek. You can be assured that etymologists are aware of Greek and would've linked the two words if it were at all plausible. 90.186.83.227 01:03, 20 March 2024 (UTC)