ferocious

English

Etymology

Taken from Latin ferox (“wild, bold, savage, fierce”) (with the suffix -ous), from ferus (“wild, savage, fierce”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /fəˈɹəʊʃəs/
• Rhymes: -əʊʃəs

Adjective

ferocious (comparative more ferocious, superlative most ferocious)

1. Marked by extreme and violent energy.
   • 1975, Saul Bellow, Humboldt's Gift [Avon ed., 1976, p. 376]:

     But it seemed to me that there were few faces like his, with the ferocious profile that brought to mind the Latin word rapax or one of Rouault's crazed death-dealing arbitrary kings.

   • 2011 October 1, Tom Fordyce, “Rugby World Cup 2011: England 16-12 Scotland”, in BBC Sport‎^[1]:

     Scotland needed a victory by eight points to have a realistic chance of progressing to the knock-out stages, and for long periods of a ferocious contest looked as if they might pull it off.

2. Extreme or intense.

Synonyms

• fierce

Derived terms

• ferociously

Related terms

• ferity
• ferocity
• fierce
• feral

Translations

Marked by extreme and violent energy

• Armenian: վայրագ (hy) (vayrag)
• Azerbaijani: şiddətli (az), dəhşətli (az)
• Bulgarian: див (bg) (div), свиреп (bg) (svirep)
• Catalan: ferotge
• Chamicuro: pchajtoki
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 猖 (zh) (chāng)

• Dutch: woest (nl), wild (nl), heftig (nl)
• Esperanto: feroca (eo)
• Finnish: julma (fi), raivokas (fi), raivopäinen
• French: féroce (fr)
• German: wild (de), brutal (de)

• Greek: άγριος (el) (ágrios)
• Hungarian: kegyetlen (hu)
• Ido: feroca (io)
• Italian: feroce (it), efferato (it), abominevole (it), odioso (it)
• Latin: ferox, trux
• Persian: سبع‎ (fa) (sabo')
• Plautdietsch: grausom
• Polish: brutalny (pl), bestialski (pl), okrutny (pl)
• Portuguese: feroz (pt)
• Russian: свире́пый (ru) (svirépyj), жесто́кий (ru) (žestókij)
• Spanish: feroz (es)
• Swedish: vild (sv), vildsint (sv)
• Welsh: brochwyllt

Further reading

• ferocious in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• ferocious in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• ferocious at OneLook Dictionary Search