FIENDISH

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does fiendish mean? 

• FIENDISH (adjective)
  The adjective FIENDISH has 1 sense:

1. extremely evil or cruel; expressive of cruelty or befitting hell

  Familiarity information: FIENDISH used as an adjective is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• FIENDISH (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Extremely evil or cruel; expressive of cruelty or befitting hell

Synonyms:

demonic; diabolic; diabolical; fiendish; hellish; infernal; satanic; unholy

Context example:

unholy grimaces

Similar:

evil (morally bad or wrong)

 Context examples 

When I quitted Geneva my first labour was to gain some clue by which I might trace the steps of my fiendish enemy.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

His big fists were clenching and unclenching, and his face was positively fiendish, so malignantly did he look at Johnson.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

I would fain exercise some better faculty than that of fierce speaking; fain find nourishment for some less fiendish feeling than that of sombre indignation.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

His dark, handsome, aquiline features were convulsed into a spasm of vindictive hatred, which had set his dead face in a terribly fiendish expression.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Had it not been too fiendish, I could have imagined that the gleam of the fanlight showed exultation in his face.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I was answered through the stillness of night by a loud and fiendish laugh.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

The cook backed away, a fiendish expression on his face, the knife held before him in a position of defence.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

It was part of their fiendish system to punish those whom they feared or hated by injuring not only their own persons but those whom they loved, and it was the knowledge of this which hung as a terror over my poor Gennaro’s head and drove him nearly crazy with apprehension.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

A grin was on the face of the monster; he seemed to jeer, as with his fiendish finger he pointed towards the corpse of my wife.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

A fiendish rage animated him as he said this; his face was wrinkled into contortions too horrible for human eyes to behold; but presently he calmed himself and proceeded—

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)