orribilità

Orribilità is a noun in Italian that denotes the quality of being horrible, repugnant, or dreadful. It derives from orribile, meaning horrible, which itself comes from Latin horribilis, and is formed with the suffix -ibilità to express an abstract quality. The term is used across literary, aesthetic, and ethical contexts to name the characteristic of eliciting strong aversion.

The concept encompasses sensory, moral, and aesthetic dimensions. It can refer to appearances, sounds, or behaviors that provoke revulsion, as well as to judgments about actions or situations deemed morally or aesthetically unacceptable. In this sense orribilità operates at the boundary between perception and evaluation, signaling a scale of intensity in which something is perceived as markedly disturbing or abhorrent.

In practice, orribilità appears in literary criticism, film and visual arts discourse, where it helps describe the impact of grotesque, macabre, or degraded imagery. In ethical and philosophical discussions, the notion is linked to moral disgust and the felt revulsion toward certain acts or conditions, sometimes serving as a basis for normative judgments about acceptability.

Orribilità is often subjective and culturally contingent; what one person or tradition regards as profoundly orribile may be judged differently by another. Some theories connect disgust to evolutionary mechanisms for avoidance, while others treat orribilità as primarily a stylistic or rhetorical effect used to provoke reflection or discomfort in an audience.

Altre nozioni correlate includono orrore, disgusto e la possibile esperienza di orripilazione.