horror show
8
6.8
- noun
- /ˈhɔrər ʃoʊ/
- Informal
:
espectáculo de horror
- Instead, we are rapidly turning into a horror show.
- a real horror show
- see a horror show
And, you know, very quickly, one of the things that's happening that I find is a horror show.
- And, you know, very quickly, one of the things that's happening that I find is a horror show.
- It is a a well documented horror show of just how awful the Kennedy men were.
- Rob Beckett vows to do a Gary Barlow and his Transformers physique as he brands diet as absolute horror show.
Examples
-
A real horror show.
Fiction book (1995) -
The chaotic scene at the accident site was a real horror show that no one wanted to witness.
-
Welcome to the horror show!
-
It's a horror show in there.
-
This is a horror show.
-
War is a horror show.
Blog text (21) -
Then she moves from my living room into my bedroom and that place is a horror show.
-
Whew, that nursery's a horror show.
-
It's a horror show.
-
And what you get is, you know, a horror show of human depravity that makes normal responsible people flee cities or leave Oregon and things like that.
Synonyms
167
3.4
A person or thing that causes strong fear or disgust
35
6.8
An event that shows strange or shocking people and acts for entertainment
1
7.0
A very messy and badly organized event or situation
Antonyms
How Bad
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly derivable from combining 'horror' (intense fear/disgust) with 'show' (an event), yielding an event that inspires horror or is terribly unpleasant; this follows a productive noun+noun modifier pattern. The metaphorical extension is minimal and compositionally transparent across languages, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents will likely infer the meaning.
Etymology
Horror show may come from old stage and film events made to scare people, a horror performance or show full of frightening scenes. Calling real life a horror show brings that picture of scary, out-of-control events, so it now means 'a very bad, chaotic, or shocking situation'.