barbarous
5
8.4
- adjective
- /ˈbɑːrbərəs/
- Offensive
:
bárbaro
- To classify people according to "worth" is undemocratic, anti-human, and a vestige of a barbarous past.
- barbarous people
- barbarous souls
- barbarous savage
Its nature is barbarous and revolting to our finer feelings.
- Its nature is barbarous and revolting to our finer feelings.
- I think, for my part, there are many nations so uncivilized and barbarous as to have no notion.
Examples
-
To the men of the Enlightenment, most English history could be dismissed with their favorite pejorative: it was 'barbarous'.
Academic text (2011) -
Civility was won through the exercise of violence over what was deemed barbarous or evil.
Academic text (2002) -
Yet we wear our shoes into the house, and some people consider that barbarous.
Fiction book (1995) -
By then, let us hope that we have ended this barbarous war and secured a just peace.
-
Sadat pleaded with the West to accept Egypt as a civilized outpost in the barbarous Middle East.
Academic text (1992) -
The Poems of Ossian make a clear distinction between Ossian's own people, the Celts, and their barbarous neighbors, the Scandinavians.
Academic text (1998) -
The explorers encountered a barbarous tribe that practiced rituals unknown to modern society.
-
Many early civilizations were often viewed as barbarous by more developed cultures.
-
The documentary illustrated the barbarous customs that had persisted in isolated communities.
Synonyms
61
6.3
Extremely cruel and violent with no respect for people
16
5.9
Showing little social or cultural development and often acting rude and violent
5
7.6
Not civilized and often rude in behavior
3
8.1
Behaving in a rude, rough way without care for others
1
9.9
Having very old-fashioned rude attitudes that reject modern social ideas
Antonyms
How Uncivilized
- Slur
23
7.2
- Offensive
5
8.4
- Offensive
16
5.9
183
5.1
- Offensive
3
5.6
Surface Forms
Morphology
barbarous = barbarian (transparent) = barbar + ous
The adjective is formed with the combining element 'barbar-' meaning uncivilized plus the productive adjective suffix '-ous', so the meaning 'uncivilized' is directly derived.
Etymology
Barbarous comes from the old Greek barbaros, a name for people whose language sounded like 'bar-bar' to Greeks and so meant 'foreign'. The Greeks used it to mean 'not civilized', and that's why barbarous describes people or customs that seem uncivilized or without culture.