OBNOXIOUS

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does obnoxious mean? 

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

1. causing disapproval or protest

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

 Dictionary entry details 

• OBNOXIOUS (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Causing disapproval or protest

Synonyms:

objectionable; obnoxious

Context example:

a vulgar and objectionable person

Similar:

offensive (unpleasant or disgusting especially to the senses)

Derivation:

obnoxiousness (the quality of being hateful)

 Context examples 

“I thought it was madness,” he said, as he replaced the obnoxious paper in the safe, “and now I begin to fear it is disgrace.”

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

He was a Turkish merchant and had inhabited Paris for many years, when, for some reason which I could not learn, he became obnoxious to the government.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

What's your name now,—P? said my aunt, as a compromise for the obnoxious appellation.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

At last, I fixed upon a resolution, for which it is probable I may incur some censure, and not unjustly; for I confess I owe the preserving of mine eyes, and consequently my liberty, to my own great rashness and want of experience; because, if I had then known the nature of princes and ministers, which I have since observed in many other courts, and their methods of treating criminals less obnoxious than myself, I should, with great alacrity and readiness, have submitted to so easy a punishment.

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

Turning from Bessie (though her presence was far less obnoxious to me than that of Abbot, for instance, would have been), I scrutinised the face of the gentleman: I knew him; it was Mr. Lloyd, an apothecary, sometimes called in by Mrs. Reed when the servants were ailing: for herself and the children she employed a physician.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

But my feelings as a wife and mother require relief; and as I do not wish to consult my family (already obnoxious to the feelings of Mr. Micawber), I know no one of whom I can better ask advice than my friend and former lodger.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

These were vile discoveries; but except for the treachery of concealment, I should have made them no subject of reproach to my wife, even when I found her nature wholly alien to mine, her tastes obnoxious to me, her cast of mind common, low, narrow, and singularly incapable of being led to anything higher, expanded to anything larger—when I found that I could not pass a single evening, nor even a single hour of the day with her in comfort; that kindly conversation could not be sustained between us, because whatever topic I started, immediately received from her a turn at once coarse and trite, perverse and imbecile—when I perceived that I should never have a quiet or settled household, because no servant would bear the continued outbreaks of her violent and unreasonable temper, or the vexations of her absurd, contradictory, exacting orders—even then I restrained myself: I eschewed upbraiding, I curtailed remonstrance; I tried to devour my repentance and disgust in secret; I repressed the deep antipathy I felt.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

I mentioned to Mr. Spenlow in the morning, that I wanted leave of absence for a short time; and as I was not in the receipt of any salary, and consequently was not obnoxious to the implacable Jorkins, there was no difficulty about it.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)