Appalling

//əˈpɔːlɪŋ// adj, verb

adj, verb ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    an experience that appalls wordnet
Verb
  1. 1
    present participle and gerund of appall form-of, gerund, participle, present
Adjective
  1. 1
    Horrifying and astonishing.

    "That was an appalling waste of money."

  2. 2
    Extremely unfavorable; terrible.

    "Sir Thomas Royden, Chairman of the L.M.S.R., and Mr. Robert Holland-Martin, Chairman of the Southern Railway, both deplored the wholesale robbery and petty pilferage which have increased until they have reached appalling dimensions."

Adjective
  1. 1
    causing consternation wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
awfuldismayingabysmalabysmalastonishingastounding

Example

More examples

"The destruction of the environment is appalling."

Etymology

By surface analysis, appall + -ing.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.