BARBAROUS

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does barbarous mean? 

• BARBAROUS (adjective)
  The adjective BARBAROUS has 2 senses:

1. (of persons or their actions) able or disposed to inflict pain or suffering

2. primitive in customs and culture

  Familiarity information: BARBAROUS used as an adjective is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• BARBAROUS (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

(of persons or their actions) able or disposed to inflict pain or suffering

Synonyms:

barbarous; brutal; cruel; fell; roughshod; savage; vicious

Context example:

vicious kicks

Similar:

inhumane (lacking and reflecting lack of pity or compassion)

Derivation:

barbarousness (the quality of being shockingly cruel and inhumane)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Primitive in customs and culture

Similar:

noncivilised; noncivilized (not having a high state of culture and social development)

 Context examples 

I have traversed a vast portion of the earth and have endured all the hardships which travellers in deserts and barbarous countries are wont to meet.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

“It is well,” cried Edward, still speaking in French: for, though he could understand English, he had never learned to express himself in so barbarous and unpolished a tongue.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

François swore strange barbarous oaths, and stamped the snow in futile rage, and tore his hair.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

It was barbarous to be happy when Edmund was suffering.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

This woman of whom he writes—whoever she be—or any one, in short, but your own dear self, mama, and Edward, may have been so barbarous to bely me.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

Ships are sent with the first opportunity; the natives driven out or destroyed; their princes tortured to discover their gold; a free license given to all acts of inhumanity and lust, the earth reeking with the blood of its inhabitants: and this execrable crew of butchers, employed in so pious an expedition, is a modern colony, sent to convert and civilize an idolatrous and barbarous people!

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

Bingley, from this time, was of course a daily visitor at Longbourn; coming frequently before breakfast, and always remaining till after supper; unless when some barbarous neighbour, who could not be enough detested, had given him an invitation to dinner which he thought himself obliged to accept.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

In support of the plausibility of this conjecture, it further occurred to her that the forbidden gallery, in which lay the apartments of the unfortunate Mrs. Tilney, must be, as certainly as her memory could guide her, exactly over this suspected range of cells, and the staircase by the side of those apartments of which she had caught a transient glimpse, communicating by some secret means with those cells, might well have favoured the barbarous proceedings of her husband.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

How barbarous have I been to you!—you, who have been my only comfort, who have borne with me in all my misery, who have seemed to be only suffering for me!

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

After many fruitless attempts to gain admittance to the prison, he found a strongly grated window in an unguarded part of the building, which lighted the dungeon of the unfortunate Muhammadan, who, loaded with chains, waited in despair the execution of the barbarous sentence.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)