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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 “hate.” Haine in turn comes from a verb of Germanic origin, hair, also meaning “to hate.” (The similarity between this hair and the other hair is coincidental.) Chaucer’s poem “Troilus and Criseyde” provides an early example of heinous in English: “He rang them out a story like a bell, against her foe who was called Polyphete, so heinous that men might on it spit.”
Examples of heinous in a Sentence
Vibe, May 2001
The verdict … also defined rape for the first time as a crime against humanity, one of the most heinous crimes. The tribunal has previously tried cases involving rape, but defined the rape as torture.
—Marlise Simons, New York Times, 23 Feb. 2001
It's hard enough to figure out what a defendant was thinking when he committed the heinous and bizarre act that has made him a candidate for the insanity defense. And state of mind is what the insanity defense is all about.
—Laura Mansnerus, New York Times Book Review, 26 Oct. 1997
These murders were especially heinous.
people accused of committing heinous crimes
Jami Ganz, New York Daily News, 26 Mar. 2025
Revelations follows a pastor who comes to believe that murdering the culprit behind a missing-person case is his divine mission and a police detective haunted by visions of her late sister who was driven to suicide after becoming the victim of a heinous crime.
—Patrick Brzeski, The Hollywood Reporter, 25 Mar. 2025
In-storyline, he was written off TV following a heinous attack by Kevin Owens at Elimination Chamber.
—Blake Oestriecher, Forbes, 23 Mar. 2025
They're accused of the most heinous crimes committed inside our neighborhoods and communities.
—Brie Stimson, Fox News, 21 Mar. 2025
See All Example Sentences for heinous
Cite this Entry
“Heinous.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/heinous. Accessed 11 Apr. 2025.
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heinous
adjective
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heinous
adjective
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