flagrant

flagrant, glaring, gross, rank are comparable as derogatory intensives meaning conspicuously or outstandingly bad or unpleasant.

Flagrant usually applies to offenses, transgressions, or errors which are so bad that they cannot escape notice or be condoned

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his treatise is marked by several flagrant errors

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a flagrant abuse of the executive power

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flagrant injustice

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open and flagrant mutiny— Kipling

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in flagrant violation of all the New York proprieties— Wharton

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Glaring carries an even stronger implication of obtrusiveness than flagrant; the term is often applied to something which is so evidently or so conspicuously wrong, improper, or faulty as to inflict such distress or pain upon the observer as might too vivid a color or too harsh a light

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a glaring fault in a design

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a glaring inconsistency in his argument

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his second novel is in glaring contrast to his first novel

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this evil is so glaring, so inexcusable— Shaw

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glaring imperfections which go far beyond a mere lack of verbal felicity— Krutch

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Gross (see also COARSE; WHOLE 2) is even more derogatory than flagrant or glaring because it suggests a magnitude or degree of badness that is beyond all bounds and wholly inexcusable or unpardonable. However, the term is not so often referred to evil acts or serious offenses as it is to human attitudes, qualities, or faults that merit severe condemnation

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gross carelessness

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gross stupidity

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gross superstition

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Elizabethan and Jacobean poetry . . . had serious defects, even gross faults— T. S. Eliot

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the hero is as gross an imposture as the heroine— Shaw

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they must read as the grossest impropriety and rankest treason— Sperry

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even illness cannot excuse such unfilial behavior and such gross folly— Graves

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Rank (see also RANK 1) applies chiefly to nouns that are terms of reproach; it implies that the person or thing described by such a term is extremely, utterly, or violently whatever he or it is declared to be

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O, my offense is rank, it smells to heaven— Shak.

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till she looked less of a rank lunatic— Meredith

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it was hatred, simple hatred, that rank poison fatal to Mr. Hazard's health, which now plagued his veins— Wylie

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rank heresy

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rank nonsense

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it would be rank madness to attempt such a journey in this weather

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Analogous words: heinous, *outrageous, atrocious, monstrous: nefarious, flagitious, infamous (see VICIOUS)