Category:Barbarous

Bar"ba*rous, a. Etym: [L. barbarus, Gr., strange, foreign; later, slavish, rude, ignorant; akin to L. balbus stammering, Skr. barbara stammering, outlandish. Cf. Brave, a.]

1. Being in the state of a barbarian; uncivilized; rude; peopled with barbarians; as, a barbarous people; a barbarous country.

2. Foreign; adapted to a barbaric taste.[Obs.] Barbarous gold. Dryden.

3. Cruel; ferocious; inhuman; merciless. By their barbarous usage he died within a few days, to the grief of all that knew him. Clarendon.

4. Contrary to the pure idioms of a language. A barbarous expression G. Campbell.

Syn.

-- Uncivilized; unlettered; uncultivated; untutored; ignorant; merciless; brutal. See Ferocious.