How to Use horrify in a Sentence

horrify

verb
  • The details of the crime horrified the nation.
  • They were horrified by the movie's violence.
  • The kids are horrified in this episode, of course.
    — Roxana Hadadi, Vulture, 8 Dec. 2025
  • She was horrified at the very idea.
    — Joan Silber, New Yorker, 30 Nov. 2025
  • His friend was horrified at what Reno came up with.
    — Christopher Borrelli, Chicago Tribune, 20 Aug. 2025
  • Then, one day my mum spotted a bald patch at the back of my head, which horrified me.
    — Simedar Jackson, Marie Claire, 15 May 2017
  • Many are horrified by all this short-termism.
    — Eric Ries, Time, 28 May 2026
  • He was horrified by his failure to see the flaws in the planning.
    — Robert Dallek, The Hive, 7 Sep. 2017
  • The locals are horrified by a killing of a guest on their island.
    — CBS News, 12 July 2019
  • The notion of once more having to wait years to go back to work horrifies her.
    — Jessica Mendoza, The Christian Science Monitor, 27 Apr. 2018
  • The deep cuts to the program have horrified those in the public health sphere.
    — Ars Technica, 14 Feb. 2025
  • He was horrified by the idea of making anyone feel bad.
    — Adrienne Lafrance, The Atlantic, 15 Sep. 2025
  • This horrified many longtime fans, but the tour was still a wild success.
    — Andy Greene, Rolling Stone, 18 June 2024
  • But some weren't horrified by the taunts or sickened by the images.
    — Alia E. Dastagir, USA TODAY, 17 July 2019
  • My husband is horrified by the blank birthday card!
    — Charlotte Phillipp, People.com, 31 Aug. 2025
  • The people who owned the land were horrified to think of our sleeping outside in the cold.
    — Judith Martin, Mercury News, 8 Nov. 2025
  • Joe is as horrified by this sound as Kavalier is elated.
    — Alan Sepinwall, Rolling Stone, 26 Aug. 2025
  • She was thus horrified when the Berlin Wall came tumbling down.
    — Lisa Gutierrez, kansascity.com, 7 June 2017
  • My spouse would never have agreed to such a thing, and his near relatives were horrified.
    — Judith Martin, The Mercury News, 6 Jan. 2024
  • Locals in the two villages where the women lived were horrified by their deaths.
    — CBS News, 27 Mar. 2026
  • Eight years of Obama's failure is what led to the events that have horrified us all.
    — Charles P. Pierce, Esquire, 5 Apr. 2017
  • Many of them are horrified by the president, which wasn’t a huge surprise.
    — Nicholas Zimmerman, Daily Intelligencer, 16 May 2018
  • The scale and speed of what’s taking place has horrified many onlookers.
    — Ishaan Tharoor, Washington Post, 2 Nov. 2023
  • The scenes horrified America and much of the world.
    — Robert B. Reich, Hartford Courant, 21 Jan. 2026
  • He was flummoxed, then horrified.
    — Amanda Petrusich, New Yorker, 22 June 2026
  • But the all-male institution was horrified by the prospect of a woman in its ranks.
    — Hugh Eakin, Harper's magazine, 19 Jan. 2020
  • Surely that must shock and horrify all those who respect democracy and the rule of law.
    — Lee Habeeb, MSNBC Newsweek, 4 Apr. 2025
  • Still, the idea of raising her daughters alone, and the prospect of them ending up with a life like hers, horrified her.
    — D. T. Max, The New Yorker, 23 Sep. 2024
  • But any baseball fan would be horrified if the umpire showed up to the field wearing one team’s jersey.
    — Michael Ross, National Review, 4 Aug. 2023
  • She would be horrified, hurt—ashamed, even, of Zeenat’s behavior.
    — Literary Hub, 30 June 2026

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'horrify.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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