annus horribilis
A thoroughly awful year.
“Two floods and a fire — an annus horribilis.”
“The chairman described the past twelve months as an annus horribilis and then asked shareholders to approve his bonus.”
“Calling it an annus horribilis was a shrewd piece of framing: the phrase treats a bad year as weather rather than as the outcome of decisions, and nobody expects an apology for the weather.”
Annus horribilis is the inversion of annus mirabilis, coined on the older phrase's pattern by people who needed the opposite. It appears occasionally in the nineteenth century, but it was a minor phrase until one speech made it famous.
On 24 November 1992, marking forty years on the throne, Queen Elizabeth II opened a speech at the Guildhall by saying that 1992 was not a year she would look back on with undiluted pleasure — that it had turned out to be an annus horribilis. Three of her children's marriages had collapsed in public and Windsor Castle had burned four days earlier.
The phrase entered general English overnight and has been available ever since for any year that a person, a company or a country would rather not discuss.
What Rome left in English — Caesar, the arena, the roads, the law, and the poets.
- 01
a Pyrrhic victory (idiom)
A win that costs so much it feels almost like a defeat.
- 02
a Roman holiday (idiom)
Enjoyment taken from watching somebody else suffer.
- 03
ad hoc (idiom)
Made for this one situation, with no general rule behind it.
- 04
ad nauseam (idiom)
Repeated so often that everyone is sick of it.
- 05
all roads lead to Rome (idiom)
Different paths can take one to the same goal.
- 06
alter ego (idiom)
A second self — either a trusted other person or a different side of yourself.
Last updated August 3, 2026