beastly

From Middle English beestly, bestely, beastelich, equivalent to beast +‎ -ly. Compare West Frisian bistachtich (“beastly”), Dutch beestachtig (“beastly”), German biestig (“beastly”).

• IPA^(key): /ˈbiːstli/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -iːstli

beastly (comparative beastlier or more beastly, superlative beastliest or most beastly) (chiefly UK)

1. Pertaining to, or having the form, nature, or habits of, a beast.
2. Similar to the nature of a beast; contrary to the nature and dignity of human beings.

   Synonyms: brutal, filthy

   beastly culture

3. (UK, dated) Abominable; very unpleasant; hideous.

   beastly weather

   Stop being so beastly to her!

   • 1904, Edith Nesbit, The New Treasure Seekers, Chapter 1:

     And all the time, whenever we went to the Cedars, there was all sorts of silly fuss going on about the beastly wedding; boxes coming from London with hats and jackets in, and wedding presents—all glassy and silvery, or else brooches and chains—and clothes sent down from London to choose from.

   • 1920, Agatha Christie, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, London: Pan Books, published 1954, page 58:

     “Yes, I’ve got the most beastly headache.”

   • 1950, Norman Lindsay, Dust or Polish?, Sydney: Angus and Robertson, page 165:

     "If you saw the care she takes over hoisting her beastly old carcass up and down those stairs, you could make a sure bet against her having another accident there."

4. (slang) Of computer hardware or motor vehicles etc.: ostentatiously powerful.
   • 2010 January 11, Matthew DeCarlo, “Silverstone mini-ITX case can fit Radeon HD 5970”, in TechSpot:

     In addition to a Core i7-860 with a full-sized heatsink and 4GB of DDR3 RAM, the company showed its SUGO SG07 housing today's most beastly graphics card, the dual-GPU Radeon HD 5970, which is about 30cm long.

   • 2014, March 21, Tycho de Feijter, “Hummer H2 is a Big Black Beast in the Rain in China”, CarNewsChina.com:

     A very big, very black, and very beastly Hummer H2, Spotted in China in in^[sic] the rain the great city of Zigong in Sichuan Province.

   • 2018 October 16, Chris Smith, “Huawei just unveiled the most beastly Android phone the world has ever seen”, in BGR:

     Huawei’s Mate 20 phones have instantly become the best iPhone XS rivals out there, at least on paper, and the high-end model is easily the most beastly Android phone the world has seen so far.

Most often used pejoratively, but sense 4 has predominantly positive connotations. Bestial is more narrow, though also often used pejoratively. See also the usage note at nature of the beast.

• (like a beast): bestial, animalian

beastly (comparative more beastly, superlative most beastly)

1. Like a beast; brutishly.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto VIII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:

     Beastly he threwe her downe, ne car'd to spill / Her garments gay with scales of fish that all did fill.

   • 1901, The Literary World, volume 63, page 35:

     They have insulted me most beastly. Moreover, they are, everyone of them, black-satan filthmen.

   • 1955, Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita:

     The baths were mostly tiled showers, with an endless variety of spouting mechanisms, but with one definitely non-Laodicean characteristic in common, a propensity, while in use, to turn instantly beastly hot or blindingly cold upon you, depending on whether your neighbor turned on his cold or his hot to deprive you of a necessary complement in the shower you had so carefully blended.

• baetyls, baylets