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barbarous Definition

bar·ba·rous (bär′bə rəs)

adjective

  1. Obsolete foreign or alien; in the ancient world, non-Greek, non-Roman, or non-Christian
  2. characterized by substandard usages in speaking or writing
  3. characteristic of barbarians; primitive or lacking in civilization
  4. uncultured, crude, coarse, rough, etc.
  5. cruel; brutal
  6. harsh in sound; raucous

Etymology: L barbarus < Gr barbaros, foreign, strange, ignorant < IE echoic base *barbar-, used for unintelligible speech of foreigners > Sans barbara-, stammering, non-Aryan

Related Forms:

barbarous Synonyms

barbarous

modif.

  1. Characterized by cruelty

    cruel, inhuman, brutal, fierce; see cruel 1.

  2. Uncivilized

    barbaric, rude, unsophisticated; see barbarian 1, primitive 3. See syn. study at barbarian.

barbarous Usage Examples

Adjective complement with noun phrase

  • say: Break any of these rules sooner than say anything barbarous.
  • call: They call the sun dance barbarous, savage, a bloody superstition.

Modifies a noun

  • nation: For even in Africa we know of many barbarous nations using only one language.
  • act: What sort of twisted mind is behind these barbarous acts of violence?
  • manner: At which he was more enrag'd then before, and fell at me again in a most barbarous manner.
  • war: They have done every thing, even thing that cannot be imagined, in a world that ended the legacy of barbarous war.
  • age: They ridiculed as relics of a barbarous age the images and rituals of the Hindu religion.
  • treatment: It also deplored the US's barbarous treatment of prisoners of war.

Modifying Another Word

  • so: He could not allow himself to think that a general could be so barbarous.
  • outright: Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.
  • very: Minor wrongs are redressed by dueling, and of a very barbarous form.

Used with adjective complement

  • become: Latin art seldom became barbarous, and in its best products it comes quite up to the level of Greek technical execution.
barbarous Quotes

This barbarous feeling of nationality†has become the curse of Europe.

—Senghor, Le¤  opold Se¤  dar

I am sure that the immediate abolition of the slave trade is the first, the principal, the most indispensable act of policy, of dutyand of justice the legislature of this country has to take, if it is indeed their wish to secure those important objects† For we continue to this hour a barbarous traffic in slaves, we continue it even yet, in spite of all our great and undeniable pretensions as civilisation.

—Pitt,William known as  theYounger

Fashion is something barbarous, for it produces innovation without reason and imitation without benefit.

—Sandys, George