Beastly

//ˈbiːstli// adj, adv, slang

adj, adv, slang ·Common ·High school level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Pertaining to, or having the form, nature, or habits of, a beast. UK
  2. 2
    Similar to the nature of a beast; contrary to the nature and dignity of human beings. UK

    "beastly culture"

  3. 3
    Abominable; very unpleasant; hideous. UK, dated

    "beastly weather"

  4. 4
    Of computer hardware or motor vehicles etc.: ostentatiously powerful. UK, slang

    "In addition to a Core i7-860 with a full-sized heatsink and 4GB of DDR3 RAM, the company showed its SUGO SG07 housing today's most beastly graphics card, the dual-GPU Radeon HD 5970, which is about 30cm long."

Adjective
  1. 1
    resembling a beast; showing lack of human sensibility wordnet
  2. 2
    (informal) very unpleasant wordnet
Adverb
  1. 1
    Like a beast; brutishly. UK

    "Beastly he threwe her downe, ne car'd to spill / Her garments gay with scales of fish that all did fill."

Adverb
  1. 1
    in a beastly manner wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
bestialinhumaneabhorrentabominableabruptadamic

Example

More examples

"And all the time, whenever we went to the Cedars, there was all sorts of silly fuss going on about the beastly wedding; boxes coming from London with hats and jackets in, and wedding presents—all glassy and silvery, or else brooches and chains—and clothes sent down from London to choose from."

Etymology

From Middle English beestly, bestely, beastelich, equivalent to beast + -ly. Compare West Frisian bistachtich (“beastly”), Dutch beestachtig (“beastly”), German biestig (“beastly”).

Related phrases

beastly careless

More for "beastly"

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