nefandous

English

WOTD – 27 May 2011

Etymology

From Latin nefandus, from ne- (“not”) + fandus, gerundive of fārī (“to speak”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /nɪˈfandəs/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• (US) IPA^(key): /nəˈfændəs/

Adjective

nefandous (comparative more nefandous, superlative most nefandous)

1. (archaic) Unspeakable, appalling.
   • 1684, Increase Mather, An Essay for the Recording of Illustrious Providences:

     Also the Daemon belched forth most horrid and nefandous Blasphemies, exalting himself above the most High.

   • 1931, H.P. Lovecraft, At the Mountains of Madness:

     It had only horror, because I knew unerringly the monstrous, nefandous analogy that had suggested it.

   • 1999, Neal Stephenson, Cryptonomicon:

     some combination of scrapie, long-term climatic change, nefandous conduct by jealous Outer Qwghlmians, and a worldwide shift in fashion away from funny-smelling thirty-pound sweaters with small arthropods living in them had driven them all into honest poverty and then not-so-honest poverty and led to their forcible transportation to Australia.

Translations

unspeakable, appalling

• Catalan: nefand
• Finnish: vastenmielinen (fi), kuvottava (fi); sanoinkuvaamaton (fi)
• Italian: nefando (it)
• Portuguese: nefando (pt)