Word of The Day for Wednesday, February 9, 2011

facinorous

fa•cin•or•ous (fa-SIN-uhr-uhs)  adj

Definition:
extremely wicked

Origin:
from Latin facinorous, from facinus "bad deed", from facere "to do or make"

Related:
Synonyms: wicked, corrupt, abominable, atrocious, contemptible, degenerate, depraved, devilish, dissolute, egregious, evil, fiendish, flagitious, foul, heinous, immoral,  iniquitous, nefarious, profane, reprobate, rotten, vicious, vile, villainous

Sentence Examples:
• And that all this is true, Sir Donough O'Conor, who was taken prisoner by the same men, because he would not assist them in their facinorous and wicked design of killing the earl, will justify; but in the morning the earl was rescued by the country folk, which conveyed him safely out of the town. -The Land-War In Ireland, James Godkin

• The infant now is naturally quite as irascible, as envious, and as vindictive, as ever was the offspring of the most facinorous Philistine; the existing boy, too, derives quite as much delight from the torture of a butterfly, or a beetle, as did his predecessor of two, three, or four thousand years ago; and the man of the present day, were he not restrained by the strength of the laws, which, in the indirect knowledge of his own infirmity, he has, in the long course of ages, imposed upon his powers of self-indulgence, would again eagerly and cheerfully lay his fellow on the wheel, the cross, or the gridiron, rub the rust from the screw and the pincers, re-pile the fagots, and depopulate continents, in the names of religion or policy, of heresy or state-necessity, of Moloch or Mahomet, but really in the fell and insatiate thirst of human blood.
The Literary gazette, 1835

•  MOR: Why? if I had made an assassinate upon your father, vitiated
   your mother, ravished your sisters—
   TRUE: I would kill you, sir, I would kill you, if you had.
   MOR: Why, you do more in this, sir: it were a vengeance centuple,
   for all facinorous acts that could be named, to do that you do.
-Epicoene, Ben Jonson

Sources: Wordsmith

Word-E: A Word-A-Day

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