nefandous

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English

WOTD – 27 May 2011

Etymology

From (deprecated template usage) [etyl] Latin nefandus, from ne- (“not”) + fandus, gerundive of fārī (“to speak”).

Pronunciation

  • Lua error in Module:parameters at line 159: Parameter 1 should be a valid language or etymology language code; the value UK is not valid. See WT:LOL and WT:LOL/E. IPA(key): /nɪˈfandəs/
  • Lua error in Module:parameters at line 159: Parameter 1 should be a valid language or etymology language code; the value US is not valid. See WT:LOL and WT:LOL/E. IPA(key): /nəˈfændəs/

Adjective

nefandous (comparative more nefandous, superlative most nefandous)

  1. (archaic) Unspeakable, appalling.
    • 1684, Increase Mather, An Essay for the Recording of Illustrious Providences:
      Also the Daemon belched forth most horrid and nefandous Blasphemies, exalting himself above the most High.
    • 1931, H.P. Lovecraft, At the Mountains of Madness
      It had only horror, because I knew unerringly the monstrous, nefandous analogy that had suggested it.
    • 1999, Neal Stephenson, Cryptonomicon
      some combination of scrapie, long-term climatic change, nefandous conduct by jealous Outer Qwghlmians, and a worldwide shift in fashion away from funny-smelling thirty-pound sweaters with small arthropods living in them had driven them all into honest poverty and then not-so-honest poverty and led to their forcible transportation to Australia.

Translations

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