heinous

Meanings

1. 1
   adj

   Totally reprehensible.

   I hope they catch the person responsible for that heinous crime.

From Middle English hainous, from Old French haïneus (compare French haineux) from haïr (“to hate”), hadir (“to hate”) (compare Old French enhadir (“to become filled with hate”)), from Frankish *hattjan (“to hate”) The fluctuation between pronunciations with /eɪ/ and /iː/ is old; the former reflects adoption of an unmonophthongised pronunciation of Old French -ai-, while the latter reflects a monophthongised form.

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