MURDEROUS

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does murderous mean? 

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

1. characteristic of or capable of or having a tendency toward killing another human being

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

 Dictionary entry details 

• MURDEROUS (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Characteristic of or capable of or having a tendency toward killing another human being

Synonyms:

homicidal; murderous

Context example:

murderous thugs

Similar:

bloody (having or covered with or accompanied by blood)

Derivation:

murder (unlawful premeditated killing of a human being by a human being)

murderousness (cruelty evidence by a capability to commit murder)

murderousness (a bloodthirsty hatred arousing murderous impulses)

 Context examples 

The murderous mark of the fiend’s grasp was on her neck, and the breath had ceased to issue from her lips.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

This, of course, fitted in well enough with the police theory, if the Colonel could have seen his wife making a murderous attack upon him.

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

Our enemy said nothing; but his little grey eyes slid round with a most murderous glance in our direction.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Now and again I stumbled, and it was then that Silver plucked so roughly at the rope and launched at me his murderous glances.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

“How can an English lady join in such a murderous affair?”

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Further back—all panting together, like the wind in a tree—there stood a group of fierce, wild creatures, bare-armed and bare-legged, gaunt, unshaven, with deep-set murderous eyes and wild beast faces.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I was sure that he would make an attempt to get me out of the way at once, and would bring round his murderous weapon for that purpose.

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

The cries of the people in the galleries, who were alarmed at the near approach of those glowing eyes and that murderous beak, excited the creature to a frenzy.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

They delivered him up to justice, and he and all his murderous band were condemned to death for their wicked deeds.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

Very murderous indeed.

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