Word Finder - atrocity

definition

An extremely cruel act; a horrid act of injustice.

example

The regime is guilty of mass atrocities including forced displacement and the use of chemical weapons.

definition

The quality or state of being atrocious; enormous wickedness; extreme criminality or cruelty.

synonyms

• atrociousness
• brutality
• heinousness

definition

An object considered to be extremely unattractive or undesirable.

synonyms

• abomination

It was the biggest terrorist atrocity in Spanish history.

For the "great" man nothing is wrong, there is no atrocity for which a "great" man can be blamed.

But Elizabeth did not profit long by this atrocity.

The Prime Minister has movingly and appropriately articulated the profound sorrow we all feel following this atrocity.

Some 30 minutes in we get a premonition of the terrible atrocity in store.

The atrocity of many of Henry's acts, the novelty and success of his religious policy, the apparent despotism of his methods, or all combined, have made it difficult to estimate calmly the importance of Henry's work or the conditions which made it possible.

The result of the investigations, during which nearly five hundred witnesses were examined, was the disclosure of a system which in treachery and atrocity was little inferior to the old African slave trade.

To him the Reform Bill came as a dire calamity, and the repeal of the Corn Laws was an unpardonable atrocity.

The Chinese Government and people hereby express their utmost indignation and stern condemnation and lodge the strongest protest against this barbaric atrocity.

This terrible atrocity occurred when terrified villagers tried to escape the bombs hailing down on them.

A commission was given him as adjutant-general in the French army, which he hoped might protect him from the penalty of treason in the event of capture by the English; though he himself claimed the authorship of a proclamation said to have been issued by the United Irishmen, enjoining that all Irishmen taken with arms in their hands in the British service should be instantly shot; and he supported a project for landing a thousand criminals in England, who were to be commissioned to burn Bristol and commit any other atrocity in their power.

By the 12th century, however, the ecclesiastical measures had proved ineffectual in coping with private warfare, and secular rulers sought independently to diminish the number and atrocity of private wars within their own domains.

By Matthew Gregory Lewis again "Timour" is depicted as the conventional tyrant of a gorgeous melodrama, slaying, burning, slaughtering and committing every possible atrocity until checked by a violent death and a poetical climax.

Commissioned, along with Barras in 1793, to establish the authority of the convention at Marseilles and Toulon, he distinguished himself in the atrocity of his reprisals, but both afterwards joined the Thermidoriens, and Freron became the leader of the jeunesse doree and of the Thermidorian reaction.

The conspirators, the chief of whom were Norman Leslie, master of Rothes, and William Kirkaldy of Grange, contrived to obtain admission at daybreak of the 29th of May 1546, and murdered the cardinal under circumstances of horrible mockery and atrocity.

Yet when Islamic fanatics commit acts of horrifying atrocity, and do so as Moslems, the peaceable Islamic majority has nothing to say.

There is the fact also that Calvin used his endeavour to have the sentence which had been pronounced against Servetus mitigated, death by burning being regarded by him as an "atrocity," for which he sought to substitute death by the sword.