odious

This one arrived in English wearing a very old Roman scowl. Latin had odium, a heavy word for hatred and ill will, and it spun off odiōsus, something hateful or offensive enough to make people step back. By the late 1300s, English had borrowed it through Anglo-French, so a word that once lived in the lecture halls and grudge-filled corridors of Rome turned up in medieval England fully dressed for disapproval. Its cousin odium still sounds scholarly and cold, while odious feels more immediate, like a rotten smell or a person making everyone inch toward the door. The phrase odium theologicum — the special venom of theological quarrels — is a perfect reminder that even the holiest arguments can become gloriously, humanly odious.