Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Characterized by extremely brutal or cruel crimes; vicious.
  • adjective Infamous; scandalous.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Shamefully wicked; atrocious; scandalous; flagrant; grossly criminal: as, a flagitious action or crime.
  • Guilty of scandalous crimes; profligate; corrupt; abandoned.
  • Marked or characterized by scandalous crimes or vices: as, a flagitious record.
  • Synonyms Execrable, Villainous, etc. (see nefarious); heinous, shameful, infamous, shocking, vile.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Disgracefully or shamefully criminal; grossly wicked; scandalous; shameful; -- said of acts, crimes, etc.
  • adjective Guilty of enormous crimes; corrupt; profligate; -- said of persons.
  • adjective Characterized by scandalous crimes or vices.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective literary Extremely brutal or cruel

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective extremely wicked, deeply criminal
  • adjective shockingly brutal or cruel

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English flagicious, wicked, from Latin flāgitiōsus, from flāgitium, shameful act, protest, from flāgitāre, to importune, to demand vehemently.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Old French flagitieux or Latin flāgitiōsus, both ultimately from flāgitium ("shameful crime").

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Examples

  • a secret and unlawful society or _hetæria_; and it was a proselytizing society; and its very name was connected with "flagitious," "atrocious," and "shocking" acts.

    The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 Rossiter Johnson 1906

  • Gertzman argues that moral reformers during this period were “correct to claim that the traffic in ‘pornography’ was vigorous in the 1920s and 1930s, and that Jews were preponderant as distributors of gallantiana erotic fiction, avant-garde sexually explicit novels, sex pulps, sexology, and the most flagitious materials.”

    A Renegade History of the United States Thaddeus Russell 2010

  • So far, both inflation and long term interest rates have remained surprisingly low, despite the flagitious promiscuity in which the U.S. has increased its federal debt, from $5.5 billion to $8.6 billion in just 18 months.

    Alan Schram: The Next Thing to Go Wrong 2010

  • It was said that the Army were to be employed as the Instruments to promote flagitious Interested Views.

    Robert Morris Charles Rappleye 2010

  • It was said that the Army were to be employed as the Instruments to promote flagitious Interested Views.

    Robert Morris Charles Rappleye 2010

  • So far, both inflation and long term interest rates have remained surprisingly low, despite the flagitious promiscuity in which the U.S. has increased its federal debt, from $5.5 billion to $8.6 billion in just 18 months.

    Alan Schram: The Next Thing to Go Wrong 2010

  • He answered with spirited resentment demands he deemed highly flagitious, counselling those who sent them, when next they applied to an unhappy family to whose calamities they had contributed, to enquire first if its principles, as well as its fortune, made the hazards of gaming amongst its domestic responsibilities.

    Camilla 2008

  • Wales; where he insinuated himself into the acquaintance of Mrs. Ecton, just after she had married Miss Melmond to Mr. Berlinton: and though this was not an intercourse that could travel to Gretna Green, the beauty and romantic turn of the bride of so disproportioned a marriage, opened to his unprincipled mind a scheme yet more flagitious.

    Camilla 2008

  • Yet it was not an age of gross and open vices; manners were not flagitious, they were merely of a nauseous insipidity.

    Henrik Ibsen 2008

  • Speak not for Ramorny, for he dies; and go thou from my presence, and repent the flagitious counsels which could make thee stand before me with a falsehood in thy mouth.

    The Fair Maid of Perth 2008

Comments

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  • Latin meaning of flagitious= To incite to lewdness

    March 18, 2008

  • Or did you mean this?

    July 21, 2008

  • This word was chosen as Wordnik word of the day.

    November 11, 2009