hateful

hateful, odious, abhorrent, detestable, abominable are sometimes used with little distinction.

But hateful more frequently applies to something which excites actual hatred; odious, to something which is excessively disagreeable or which gives offense or arouses repugnance

{

why shouldn't we hate what is hateful in people, and scorn what is mean?— Thackeray

}

{

between these two natures, so antipathetic, so hateful to each other, there was depending an unpardonable affront— Stevenson

}

{

our blind poet, who in his later day stood almost single, uttering odious truth— Wordsworth

}

{

it was an odious face— crafty, vicious, malignant, with shifty, light gray eyes— Doyle

}

Something is abhorrent which outrages one's sense of what is just, right, honorable, or decent

{

she [his wife] was his property .... To me it is a view that has always been abhorrent— Galsworthy

}

Something is detestable which deserves scorn or contempt

{

hypocrisy is more detestable than shamelessness

}

{

I think you're detestable. You're the most loathsome beast that it's ever been my misfortune to meet— Maugham

}

Something is abominable which is so abhorrent as to deserve execration

{

on board ship ready to sail away from this abominable world of treacheries, and scorns and envies and lies— Conrad

}

{

all the living conditions were abominable— Cather

}

Analogous words: *antipathetic, unsympathetic, averse: repellent, *repugnant, obnoxious, distasteful

Antonyms: lovable: sympathetic

Contrasted words: congenial, compatible, *consonant: attractive, alluring, charming (see under ATTRACT)