Etymograph

English

horror

Horror comes from Old French horror ‘horror or terror’, and goes back to Latin horreō ‘to bristle, shake, be terrified’.

  1. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEhorreō1as horrere‘to bristle’
  2. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEhorror1‘a bristling’
  3. Old Frenchc. 842–1400horror1‘horror or terror’
  4. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500horer1
  5. Englishearliest quotation 1712horror1

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor

  1. 1 Wiktionary, English horror
  2. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1712, Joseph Addison, Cato: A tragedy: “Their swarthy Hosts wou'd darken all our Plains, /…”.

Lineage

  1. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEhorreōWiktionary, English horroras horrere‘to bristle’
  2. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEhorrorWiktionary, English horror‘a bristling’
  3. Old Frenchc. 842–1400horrorWiktionary, English horror‘horror or terror’
  4. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500horerWiktionary, English horror
  5. Englishearliest quotation 1712horrorWiktionary, English horror. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1712, Joseph Addison, Cato: A tragedy: “Their swarthy Hosts wou'd darken all our Plains, /…”

Word family

English words that share an ancestor with horror, grouped by the ancestor they share, most familiar first.

through Latin horreō ‘to bristle, shake, be terrified’

4 more relatives in the full family tree

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Today it means

noun An intense distressing emotion of fear or repugnance.

Sources

Sources: Wiktionary, “horror”. By Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0, via kaikki.org (dump of Oct 3 2026); text adapted and restructured. Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word. License.

Etymograph / Latin horreō / horror