Horrific means causing intense horror, shock, or disgust. When something is horrific, it's so terrible or frightening that it disturbs you deeply. A horrific accident might involve serious injuries that are difficult to witness. A horrific crime shocks an entire community because of its cruelty or violence.

The word goes beyond merely scary or unpleasant. A spider might be scary to someone, but a horrific scene in a book or movie makes readers or viewers genuinely upset or shaken. War correspondents sometimes witness horrific events that stay with them for years. Natural disasters like earthquakes or hurricanes can cause horrific damage, leaving behind destruction that's hard to comprehend.

You might also hear people use horrific more casually to describe something just really, really bad: “The traffic was horrific” or “That was a horrific performance by our team.” In these cases, people are exaggerating to emphasize how bad something was, even though it wasn't truly horrifying.