Fear bound together with revulsion and shock.
Fear bound together with revulsion and shock — what one feels in the presence of something monstrous, atrocious, or grotesque.
The one word in the family that welds fear to revulsion and disgust — alongside fear, it carries a strong sense of loathing or repugnance that none of the others share. Characteristically the response to something monstrous actually witnessed or realized, not merely anticipated. In the Gothic tradition, horror is the “sickening realization” that contracts and freezes — opposite to terror, the anticipatory dread that “expands the soul.” Differs from panic (no frantic flight; horror can be paralyzing) and from fright (deeper, with revulsion). “Watched in horror,” “the horrors of war.”
Fear fused with revulsion and shock at something monstrous or atrocious.
Unlike terror, horror inherently includes disgust; in the Gothic tradition (Radcliffe, 1826) it is the “sickening realization,” where terror is the dread that precedes it.
Fiction or film meant to frighten and disturb.
The genre sense dates to 1934 (the adjective “horror movie” to 1936).
Early 14c. “feeling of disgust,” soon also “dread,” from Latin horror “a shaking, shudder, chill,” from horrere “to bristle with fear, shudder,” from PIE *ghers- “to bristle.” The revulsion element is present from the start.
Earliest English sense was “disgust” (early 14c.), then “horror or dread” (late 14c.); older physiological senses (a feverish “shivering,” bristling hairs) are now obsolete. As a fiction/film genre, “horror” dates to 1934 (the adjective to 1936); “chamber of horrors” to 1849.