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ferocity

[fuh-ros-i-tee]

Example Sentences Origin

noun

a ferocious quality or state; savage fierceness.

Origin:
1600–10; < Latin ferōcitās, equivalent to ferōc-, stem of ferōx ferocious + -itās -ity

Related forms

non·fe·roc·i·ty, noun

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
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Link To ferocity

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Ferocity is always a great word to know.

So is lollapalooza. Does it mean:

a chattering or flighty, light-headed person.

an extraordinary or unusual thing, person, or event; an exceptional example or instance.

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Example Sentences

It was too brief, the majesty and ferocity of the storm, and the subsequent beauty and quiet of the city.

The ball pours in with the sudden ferocity and horror of a lunging bite from a lion.

Yet the ferocity of protest suggests that something more radical may be happening.

EXPAND

It was too brief, the majesty and ferocity of the storm, and the subsequent beauty and quiet of the city.

The ball pours in with the sudden ferocity and horror of a lunging bite from a lion.

Yet the ferocity of protest suggests that something more radical may be happening.

Here in the heart of the roaring forties, the wind can blow with almost constant ferocity.

Don't underestimate ferocity of mothers protective instinct, which is even greater when it comes to grandchildren.

She can bury her princessy prissiness under ferocity.

Yet another example of the blind, unreasoning ferocity of naval courts-martial.

As in the past, after recovering they would resume their attacks with renewed ferocity.

Winter storms, rolling unchecked across thousands of miles of open ocean, struck the islands with almost unimaginable ferocity.

It follows with a ferocity that even murderers seldom feel.

He was crushed by the re lentless ferocity and endurance of his antagonists.

Since then the armed struggle has been resumed, with ferocity.

There's much more for us to marvel about sharks than their power and ferocity.

Word of his reputation for courtroom ferocity had kicked around their halls before.

The speed and ferocity of the recent technology stock meltdown has completely changed the rules of portfolio management.

Given the ferocity of the insurgency, it would be no surprise if the time-table slipped.

Such ferocity doesn't help unsuspecting people who surprise a bear in the forest.

Lieberman would later express his shock that the two executives went after each other with such ferocity.

Has rare power and ferocity when it comes to landing blocks in space.

What is surprising is the source, the timing and the ferocity of the attack.

Ferocity on this scale offers little in the way of second chances to those that make a mistake.

Reciprocal ferocity of the painters and sculptors who murder each other in the same museum with blows of line and color.

The ferocity of the flooding appeared to take many here by surprise.

Part of the problem is the sheer ferocity of the downturn, a mirror image of the over-inflation of last year's bubble.

In the next moment, the obstruction in question shot out of the line with fire hose ferocity.

The extent and ferocity of the crackdown have given an almost surreal facade to persistent government vows to reform.

The rise in problem loans has more to do with regulatory ferocity than mounting bad debts.

Nothing illustrates the battle's ferocity better than the eye-watering price cuts of the past few weeks.

Though one has to wonder, given the ferocity of hatred, if racism has something to do with it as well.

Frustrated forumites fiercely frown, not feigning ferocity.

Aluminum powder was also used to accelerate the explosion and added to the ferocity of the blaze, officials said.

We hug you with the same ferocity with which you hugged us.

One of my cats loves to pretend-fight and often picks on my other cat, which is about half his size and has none of his ferocity.

Perhaps the ferocity behind suicide attacks can be understood in this context.

But the ferocity of their initial disapproval suggests that small sweeteners will not persuade creditors to change their minds.

In particular, there is now a feeling that as the ferocity of the insurgency in.

What began as a modest, seemingly containable fire erupted into a deadly fireball with a ferocity that baffled investigators.

Shields plunges into the interior life of her characters with all the ferocity of a major novelist.

The first is the ferocity of the contest for a place.

But it has hit broad sections of the nation's young people with a ferocity that has left many of them stunned.

Sutherland invests his role with a glowering ferocity that lends the film a psychological weight whenever he is on the screen.

In the past, the sheer scale, power and ferocity of the riot police had easily overcome any challenge.

But the scale and ferocity of conflict was due in large part to the emperor's.

COLLAPSE

Collins

World English Dictionary

ferocious (fəˈrəʊʃəs)

—*adj*
	savagely fierce or cruel: a ferocious tiger; a ferocious argument

[C17: from Latin ferox fierce, untamable, warlike]

fe'rociously

—*adv*

ferocity

—n

fe'rociousness

—n

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
Cite This Source

Etymonline

Word Origin & History

ferocity

c.1600, from Fr. férocité, from L. ferocitatem (nom. ferocitas) "fierceness," from ferocis, an oblique case of ferox "fierce, wild-looking," a derivative of ferus "wild" (see fierce) + -ox, -ocem (gen. -ocis), a suffix meaning "looking or appearing" (cognate with Gk. ops "eye, sight").

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Related Words

blazing

tiger cat

Matching Quote

"A lock-jaw that bends a man's head back to his heels, hydrophobia, that makes him bark at his wife and babes, insanity, that makes him eat grass; war, plague; cholera, famine, indicate a certain ferocity in nature, which, as it had its inlet by human crime, must have its outlet by human suffering."

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

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