[(? a. F. atrocité,) ad. L. atrōcitātem, n. of quality f. atrox fierce, cruel.]
1. Savage enormity, horrible or heinous wickedness.
1534. More, On the Passion, Wks. 1294/2. For the atrocyte of the story … almost euerye childe hathe heard.
a. 1674. Clarendon, Hist. Reb., I. II. (1707), 412 (J.). They further desired that Justice might be done upon Offenders, according as the Atrocity of their Crimes had deserv’d.
1863. Gardiner, Hist. Eng., I. 253. If the atrocity of their design was hidden from their eyes.
2. Fierceness, sternness, implacability. arch.
1635. Naunton, Fragm. Reg., 183. The atrocity of her father’s nature.
1865. Baring-Gould, Were-wolves, v. 54. They besiege it with atrocity, striving to break in the doors.
3. An atrocious deed; an act of extreme cruelty and heinousness.
1793. T. Jefferson, Writ. (1859), IV. 14. To defend themselves from the atrocities of a vastly more numerous and powerful people.
1880. McCarthy, Own Times, IV. 456. The deeds which ever since have been known as ‘the Bulgarian atrocities.’
4. colloq. with no moral reference: A very bad blunder, violation of taste or good manners, etc.
1878. Hatton Corr., Pref. 4. Their diction and their spelling, and the fearful atrocities committed in the latter.
