# heinous

> English word · Adjective · IPA /ˈheɪnəs/ · frequency rank #20,952

## Definitions
1. Totally reprehensible.
2. Bad, evil or villainous.

## Etymology
From Middle English hainous, from Old French haïneus (compare French haineux) from haïr (“to hate”), hadir (“to hate”) (compare Old French enhadir (“to become filled with hate”)), from Frankish *hattjan (“to hate”)
The fluctuation between pronunciations with /eɪ/ and /iː/ is old; the former reflects adoption of an unmonophthongised pronunciation of Old French -ai-, while the latter reflects a monophthongised form.

## Common misspellings (9)
`ehinous`, `heinnous`, `heinosu`, `heinouss`, `heinuos`, `heionus`, `henious`, `hheinous`, `hienous`

## Source
Compiled from Wiktionary via kaikki.org (CC BY-SA). Data vintage: 2026-05-06.
Canonical page: https://plainspell.com/en/word/heinous