heinous ˈheɪnəs adjective
: extremely wicked or deeply criminal
The word heinous has appeared 144 times on NYTimes.com in the past year, including on July 16 in The New York Times Magazine article “Everyone’s Obsessed With True Crime. Even Prisoners Like Me,” by John J. Lennon:
Some watch with the prison hierarchy in mind. I recently caught up with Simon Dedaj, a friend of mine at Shawangunk Correctional, a maximum-security facility that houses high-profile prisoners. He told me he used to watch Oxygen’s “New York Homicide,” and he would often see its subjects in the cellblock or yard and bust their chops about it. “Guys are getting blown up left and right,” he said, their histories exposed via TV. But prison has a pecking order: Some crimes, like hurting women or children, land you low in its ranks, and someone with a heinous case might lie about it.
Daily Word Challenge
Can you correctly use the word heinous in a sentence?
Based on the definition and example provided, write a sentence using today’s Word of the Day and share it as a comment on this article. It is most important that your sentence makes sense and demonstrates that you understand the word’s definition, but we also encourage you to be creative and have fun.
If you want a better idea of how heinous can be used in a sentence, read these usage examples on Vocabulary.com. You can also visit this guide to learn how to use IPA symbols to show how different words are pronounced.
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