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god-awful

god-awful

16 8.4
Very bad and unpleasant
  • adjective
  • /ɡɑdˈɔfəl/
  • Informal
translation icon : horrible
  • The food at that restaurant was absolutely god-awful and I couldn't finish my meal.
  • a god-awful mess
  • a god-awful noise
  • a god-awful thing

In other words, they would pay a God awful price to win the war.

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Examples

  • There you go again, making that god-awful sound.

  • You have the most beautiful white birds that make the most God awful sounds.

  • In other words, they would pay a God awful price to win the war.

  • See it for what it is a God awful disease.

  • See it for what it is, a God awful disease.

  • What is that god-awful smell?

  • Every god-awful night I come home to an empty house.

  • It's real, it's fundamental, and a god-awful mess; but I love it.

    Blog text (29)
  • So we have a bunch of God awful jokes and we have a bunch of props and stuff to help act them out.

  • That's a god-awful idea.

Synonyms

terrible
vsgod-awful
1.0

Very bad or unpleasant and often serious

is more slangy and used to heighten negative feeling in speech
horrible
vsgod-awful
1.5

Very bad or frightening in a way that makes you feel upset

is more casual and used to intensify negative feeling
awful
vsgod-awful
1.0

Very bad or unpleasant and causing dislike

is more informal and used to add stronger emotional emphasis
dreadful
vsgod-awful
136 3.7

Very bad and unpleasant, often causing fear or shock

is more casual and serves mainly as emphatic negative language
appalling
vsgod-awful
87 5.6

Causing shock and strong disgust because it is very bad

is closer but more informal and used for emphatic dislike
horrendous
vsgod-awful
82 7.0

Very shocking and scary, causing fear or disgust

is more informal and used mainly to stress negativity strongly
gross
vsgod-awful
  • Formal
65 4.3

Very serious and obvious, showing a large fault or failure

is more colloquial and aimed at stressing negative feeling rather than judgement
unspeakable
vsgod-awful
58 7.2

Too terrible to describe in words

is similarly extreme but more casual and used for emphasis
horrid
vsgod-awful
52 4.1

A very unpleasant thing that shocks or disgusts you

is more colloquial and used for strong negative emphasis
ghastly
vsgod-awful
49 6.8

Causing great fear and shock, often like death or ghosts

is similarly negative but more colloquial and used for strong emphasis
wicked
vsgod-awful
42 3.1

A very bad or painful condition, for example during illness

is more colloquial and used mainly for strong negative emphasis
hellish
vsgod-awful
28 6.1

Very unpleasant and painful, like being in hell

is comparably strong but more casual and emphatic in speech
abysmal
vsgod-awful
25 7.1

Very bad or of poor quality

is similar in degree but is more colloquial and emphatic
abominable
vsgod-awful
24 7.2

Very bad or morally wrong so people strongly dislike it

is more informal and focuses on strong negative emphasis only
sucky
vsgod-awful
  • Informal
23 9.3

Very bad or disappointing to experience

is more intense and used to add emphatic negative feeling
atrocious
vsgod-awful
19 7.0

Being very bad and of low quality

is less formal but used to add strong negative feeling
beastly
vsgod-awful
  • Informal
9 6.7

Very unpleasant to experience

is more forceful and used specifically to stress strong negativity
stinking
vsgod-awful
  • Informal
7 5.3

Very bad or unpleasant

is similarly informal but signals even stronger negative emphasis
frightful
vsgod-awful
7 4.2

Very bad or unpleasant in a strong way

is more common in casual speech and used for strong dislike
godawful
vsgod-awful
  • Informal
4 8.2

Very bad and unpleasant, of poor quality

is the informal hyphenated form used for strong negative emphasis
hellacious
vsgod-awful
  • Informal
3 9.0

Very bad or difficult and hard to deal with

is equally strong but more colloquial and used for emphasis
helly
vsgod-awful
  • Slang
9.9

An extremely unpleasant situation that is hard to handle

is similar but used more broadly as an emphatic informal adjective

Antonyms

1.0

Very good and likely to make you feel happy or amazed

1.0

Very good and better than most similar things

How Bad

god-awful
  • Informal
16 8.4
atrocious
12 7.6
terrible
1.0
awful
1.0
bad
1.0

Surface Forms

god-awful positive

Morphology

god-awful = awful (semi-transparent) = god + awful

The elements 'god' + 'awful' are visible, but 'god-' functions idiomatically as an intensifier rather than a productive prefix, so the exact emphatic meaning may not be fully derivable.

Etymology

The word god-awful comes from the parts god and awful, and long ago awful meant 'full of awe' or 'causing fear or respect' in relation to God. That's why today god-awful is used as a strong, informal way to say something is 'extremely bad'.