DIABOLIC • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Diabolic

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adjective

Diabolical, Diabolic adj.

Pertaining to the devil; resembling, or appropriate, or appropriate to, the devil; befitting hell or satan; devilish; infernal; impious; as, a diabolic or diabolical temper or act; the diabolical expression on his face; fires lit up a diabolic scene. "Diabolic power." "The diabolical institution."

Synonyms: devilish, mephistophelian, mephistophelean.

Showing a wicked cunning or ingenuity; as, the cold calculation and diabolic art of some statesmen.

Synonyms: devilish, mephistophelian, mephistophelean.

Extremely evil or cruel; atrocious; outrageously wicked; as, diabolical sorcerers under the influence of devils; diabolical torturers taking pleasure in their craft.

Synonyms: demonic, fiendish, hellish, infernal, nefarious, satanic.

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Etymology of 'Diabolic'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Diabolic" Quotes from Famous Books

... the Circumlocution Office, not previously mentioned in the present record. When that admirable Department got into trouble, and was, by some infuriated members of Parliament whom the smaller Barnacles almost suspected of labouring under diabolic possession, attacked on the merits of no individual case, but as an Institution wholly abominable and Bedlamite; then the noble or right honourable Barnacle who represented it in the House, would smite that member and cleave him ...

— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens

... than the lightness of Ariel. But far oftener he is a more potent spirit than any Robin Goodfellow, and as powerful as Ariel and Ariel's master. Trust him wholly you may not; a characteristic often noted in intelligences that are neither exactly human, nor exactly diabolic, nor exactly divine. But he will do great things for you, and a little wit and courage on your part will prevent his doing anything serious against you. To him, with much greater justice than to Hogg, might Wilson have applied the nickname of ...

— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury

... know through the half-caste girl about our ways and doings, and he made a diabolic plot with King Mograbar to get the blacks into the house.... Every living soul was murdered ...surprised in their sleep ... My father ... my mother ... my sisters ... God! ... I can't speak ...

— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed

... and understand enter for us into the tissue of the man's character; those to which we are strangers in our own experience we are inclined to regard as blots, exceptions, inconsistencies, and excursions of the diabolic; we conceive them with repugnance, explain them with difficulty, and raise our hands to heaven in wonder when we find them in conjunction with talents that we respect or virtues that we admire. David, king of ...

— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson

... indwelling demon Two sources whence better things might have been hoped.—The reasons of their futility The growth of exorcism Use of whipping and torture The part of art and literature in making vivid to the common mind the idea of diabolic activity The effects of religious processions as a cure for mental disease Exorcism of animals possessed of demons Belief in the transformation of human beings into animals The doctrine of demoniacal possession in ...

— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White

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