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For eons, humans have contrasted love with hate and good with evil, putting love and good on one side, and hate and evil on the other. The association of hate with evil is baked into the etymology of heinous, which English gained directly from Anglo-French in the 14th century with the meaning we still know today; its source is the Anglo-French noun haine, meaning “hate.” Haine in turn comes from a verb of Germanic origin, hair, also meaning “to hate.” (The similarity between this hair and the other hair is coincidental.) Chaucer’s poem “Troilus and Criseyde” provides an early example of heinous in English: “He rang them out a story like a bell, against her foe who was called Polyphete, so heinous that men might on it spit.”
Examples of heinous in a Sentence
Vibe, May 2001
The verdict … also defined rape for the first time as a crime against humanity, one of the most heinous crimes. The tribunal has previously tried cases involving rape, but defined the rape as torture.
—Marlise Simons, New York Times, 23 Feb. 2001
It's hard enough to figure out what a defendant was thinking when he committed the heinous and bizarre act that has made him a candidate for the insanity defense. And state of mind is what the insanity defense is all about.
—Laura Mansnerus, New York Times Book Review, 26 Oct. 1997
These murders were especially heinous.
people accused of committing heinous crimes
Benjamin Wallace-Wells, New Yorker, 19 July 2025
Many versions of the conspiracy theory have asserted that the government is covering up a list of powerful men who also committed heinous crimes.
—Brian Stelter, CNN Money, 15 July 2025
Moscow, Idaho, was overwhelmed by the gravity of his heinous crimes and the public scrutiny that came with it.
—Stephanie Nolasco, FOXNews.com, 12 July 2025
The heinous act may never have come to light if not for Mendenhall’s chance encounter with an astute detective years ago.
—Sarah Nelson, IndyStar, 2 July 2025
See All Example Sentences for heinous
Cite this Entry
“Heinous.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/heinous. Accessed 26 Jul. 2025.
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heinous
adjective
Legal Definition
heinous
adjective
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