heinous
adj.adj. extremely evil, shocking, or wicked. You use this to describe a crime or action that is so bad it is hard to believe.
adj. grossly wicked or reprehensible; abominable. Often used in legal or journalistic contexts to describe serious crimes or moral outrages.
The judge described the murder as a heinous crime.
The international community condemned the heinous acts of violence committed against innocent civilians during the conflict.
Historians continue to debate how ordinary citizens could remain complicit while such heinous policies were being enacted by the state.
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.
Typically used to modify nouns related to crime, cruelty, or sin; often appears in the phrase 'heinous crime'.