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/ɪnˈɔrməti/ /inˈɔrməti/ Listen

noun

Enormity n. (pl. enormities)

The state or quality of exceeding a measure or rule, or of being immoderate, monstrous, or outrageous. "The enormity of his learned acquisitions."

That which is enormous; especially, an exceeding offense against order, right, or decency; an atrocious crime; flagitious villainy; an atrocity. "These clamorous enormities which are grown too big and strong for law or shame."

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Etymology of 'Enormity'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Enormity" Quotes from Famous Books

... sufferers. The outburst of pity and of charity exceeded anything that the world had known. Differences of race and religion were swallowed up in the universal sympathy which was felt for those who had suffered so terribly from an evil that was as unexpected as it was unimaginable in its enormity. ...

— Edison's Conquest of Mars • Garrett Putman Serviss

... total community. But had there even been a gentry in Stratford, since they would have marked the distinctions of their rank chiefly by greater reserve of manners, it is probable that, after all, Shakspeare, with his enormity of delight in exhibitions of human nature, would have mostly cultivated that class of society in which the feelings are more elementary and simple, in which the thoughts speak a plainer language, and in which the restraints ...

— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey

... and sympathy in return, was everything that could be done for her. To be otherwise comforted was out of the question. The case admitted of no comfort. Lady Bertram did not think deeply, but, guided by Sir Thomas, she thought justly on all important points; and she saw, therefore, in all its enormity, what had happened, and neither endeavoured herself, nor required Fanny to advise her, to think little ...

— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... of Major Weir in 1670, who also was executed on his own voluntary confession of witchcraft and crime. Gilles's last words, though couched in Christian phraseology, show that he had not realized the enormity of the crimes which he confessed: 'We have sinned, all three of us', he said to his two companions, 'but as soon as our souls have left our bodies we shall all see God in His glory in Paradise.' He was hanged on a gibbet above a pyre, but ...

— The Witch-cult in Western Europe - A Study in Anthropology • Margaret Alice Murray

... luckless as to fall into his hands, were hastened away to their execution with but the mockery of a trial. Doubtless Berkeley felt himself justified in this severity. To him rebellion against the King was not merely a crime, it was a hideous sacrilege. Those guilty of such an enormity should receive no mercy. But this cannot explain or excuse the coarse brutality and savage joy with which he sent his victims to the scaffold. It is impossible not to feel that many of these executions were dictated, not by motives of policy or ...

— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker

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