obnoxious
- 1Very unpleasant, annoying, or offensive.
Please turn off that obnoxious music.
His obnoxious jokes ruined the whole dinner.
Similarannoying, irritating, disgusting, distasteful, irksome
Oppositepleasant, agreeable, delightful
Note
- 2Of a person: rude, loud, or hard to deal with for no good reason.
An obnoxious man kept yelling at the waiter.
My cousin gets obnoxious whenever he loses at cards.
Similarrude, abrasive, insufferable, objectionable, disagreeable
Oppositepleasant, agreeable, likable, polite
Note
- 3Causing harm or hurt.
Too much rain is obnoxious to young wheat.
The poison is obnoxious to every animal that eats it.
Note
- 4Open to something bad, such as harm, and easily hurt by it.
Low houses near the river are obnoxious to floods.
Thinke but hovv poore thou vvaſt, hovv obnoxious; / VVhom a ſmall lumpe of fleſh could poyſon thus.
a. 1631 (date written), J[ohn] Donne, “The Progresse of the Soule. The First Song.”Here, obnoxious means open to harm and unprotected.Note
- 5Guilty, and deserving to be blamed or punished.
Therefore no wise republic ought to be satisfied, unless she bring to punishment the individual most obnoxious, and those about him who may be supposed to have made him so, his counsellors and courtiers.
1824, Walter Savage Landor, “Conversation VI. Æschines and Phocion.”Here, obnoxious means most to blame, deserving punishment.[A]s our par[ti]cular Perſons vvere not obnoxious, ſo if any Engliſh or Dutch Ships came thither, perhaps vve might have an Opportunity to load our Goods, and get Paſſage to ſome other Place in India, nearer Home.
1719, [Daniel Defoe], The Farther Adventures of Robinson CrusoeHere, obnoxious means guilty or deserving blame.Similarreprehensible
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- 6Under someone's power, and so quick to obey them.
[M]ost of them (the fellowes) being sneaking and obnoxious, they did run rather with the temper of the warden, than stand against him, to keep themselves in and enjoy their comfortable importances.
a. 1696 (date written), Anthony Wood, “The Life of Anthony a Wood, Written by Himself”Here, obnoxious means under someone's power, and so obedient and humble.Note
- 7Likely to do something, used with to and a verb.
Note
Practice
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Origin
It comes from a Latin word meaning “under someone's power”, with the English ending -ous.