ENORMITY • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Enormity

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/ɪnˈɔrməti/ /inˈɔrməti/ Listen

noun

Enormity n. (pl. enormities)

The state or quality of exceeding a measure or rule, or of being immoderate, monstrous, or outrageous. "The enormity of his learned acquisitions."

That which is enormous; especially, an exceeding offense against order, right, or decency; an atrocious crime; flagitious villainy; an atrocity. "These clamorous enormities which are grown too big and strong for law or shame."

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Etymology of 'Enormity'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Enormity" Quotes from Famous Books

... I was afraid of disobeying a father who is unjustly enraged against you, and resolved on your destruction; but at last I loathe and abhor this barbarity. Be comforted; your bad days are over; I will endeavour to make amends for all my crimes, of the enormity of which, by my future behaviour, you will find I am convinced. You have hitherto looked upon me as an infidel; but having been converted by a slave who is a Mussulman, you must henceforth believe me one of your own religion. I hope your lessons will finish my conversion. To show my good intentions, ...

— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous

... clearly and positively, when he felt it his duty to speak, although evasion or silence would have been the more comfortable alternative. "I doubt," says Mr. Chadwick,[129] "if Garrison or Parker had a keener sense than his of the enormity of human slavery. Before the first Abolitionist Society had been organized, he was one of the organizers of a committee for the discussion and advancement of emancipation. I have read all of his principal writings upon slavery, ...

— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey

... hundred flourishing Abolition societies of the North, with all the supporters they have in unassociated individuals. If it be found that the five Abolitionists who first met in a little chamber five years ago, to measure their moral strength against this national enormity, have become a host beneath whose assaults the vicious institution is rocking to its foundations, it is time that slavery was ceasing to be ...

— Woman and the Republic • Helen Kendrick Johnson

... waiting a powerful explosive, which Fayette had purloined from the store of the workmen who were excavating for the new wing of the building. In a moment more the fuse would have burned unnoticed to its fatal end, and an awful crime, of whose enormity the dull criminal had no real ...

— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond

... fasting man, to prison for smelling at a saveloy and a slice of ham, Sir Robert has laid down a graduated—we mean a sliding—scale of penalties for the crime of eating, proportioning, with the most delicate skill, the exact amount of the punishment to the enormity of the offence. By his profound wisdom he has discovered that the great increase of crime in these countries is entirely attributable to over-feeding the multitude. Like the worthy Mr. Bumble, in "Oliver Twist," he protests ...

— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, December 4, 1841 • Various

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