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barbarous

Diction
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

Savage, cruel, or uncivilized. It is a strongly literary or old-fashioned word.

Detailed Definition
Barbarous is an elevated, harsh adjective used in older writing to condemn something as cruel or uncivilized. Hood uses it to express the speaker’s outrage and to contrast her suffering with the idea of a humane Christian society.
Example
Example in poetry:
“It’s O! to be a slave / Along with the barbarous Turk” shows barbarous as historically prejudicial diction, not a neutral description; Byron’s Orientalist settings reveal how Romantic poetry could exoticize the Ottoman world; Shakespeare’s Othello shows how racialized labels can carry violence and suspicion; modern editions and classrooms should discuss barbarous critically as a term that constructs outsiders as uncivilized
Additional Notes
The adjective "barbarous" in "barbarous Turk" is a literary, old-fashioned insult that modern readers may not use regularly.; Found in the poem, The Song of the Shirt by Thomas Hood
Also Known As
savage cruel barbaric brutal
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