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DETESTABLE
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I. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Unequivocally detestable
Example:
consequences odious to those you govern
Synonyms:
abominable; detestable; execrable; odious
Classified under:
Similar:
hateful (evoking or deserving hatred)
Sense 2
Meaning:
Offensive to the mind
Example:
the most repulsive character in recent novels
Synonyms:
abhorrent; detestable; obscene; repugnant; repulsive
Classified under:
Similar:
offensive (unpleasant or disgusting especially to the senses)
Context examples:
You should hear mama on the chapter of governesses: Mary and I have had, I should think, a dozen at least in our day; half of them detestable and the rest ridiculous, and all incubi—were they not, mama?
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
As for Elizabeth herself, this invitation was so far from exciting in her the same feelings as in her mother and Lydia, that she considered it as the death warrant of all possibility of common sense for the latter; and detestable as such a step must make her were it known, she could not help secretly advising her father not to let her go.
(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)
I was glad to get out of the detestable presence of the cook and to be off my feet.
(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)
I had much ado to defend myself against these detestable animals, and could not forbear starting when they came on my face.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
It was the first time it had ever occurred to me, that this detestable cant of false humility might have originated out of the Heep family.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
Thus situated, employed in the most detestable occupation, immersed in a solitude where nothing could for an instant call my attention from the actual scene in which I was engaged, my spirits became unequal; I grew restless and nervous.
(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)
It was worse when it began to be clothed upon with detestable attributes; and out of the shifting, insubstantial mists that had so long baffled his eye, there leaped up the sudden, definite presentment of a fiend.
(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)
You are to thank your brother and me for the scheme; it darted into our heads at breakfast-time, I verily believe at the same instant; and we should have been off two hours ago if it had not been for this detestable rain.
(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)
And indeed I now apprehended that I must absolutely starve, if I did not get to some of my own species; for as to those filthy Yahoos, although there were few greater lovers of mankind at that time than myself, yet I confess I never saw any sensitive being so detestable on all accounts; and the more I came near them the more hateful they grew, while I stayed in that country.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
I'll put my hand in no man's hand, said Mr. Micawber, gasping, puffing, and sobbing, to that degree that he was like a man fighting with cold water, until I have—blown to fragments—the—a—detestable—serpent—HEEP!
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
