obnoxious

• obnoctious (obsolete)

From Latin obnoxiōsus (“hurtful, injurious, dangerous”), from obnoxius (“punishable; liable to danger”), from ob (“against; facing”) + noxia (“hurt, injury, damage”).

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /əbˈnɒkʃəs/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /əbˈnɑkʃəs/

obnoxious (comparative more obnoxious, superlative most obnoxious)

1. Extremely unpleasant or offensive; very annoying, odious or contemptible.
   • 2010 August 3, David Bennun, Tick Bite Fever‎, Random House, page 109:

     I WOULD HAVE been nine or ten when my mother chased me up a thorn tree with a ceremonial hippo-hide whip. What my crime was, I forget. My mother was, and remains, a woman of exceptional forbearance. I must have done something so obnoxious as to beggar belief.

   He was an especially obnoxious and detestable specimen of a man.

   Throwing stones at the bus is another example of your obnoxious behaviour.

2. (Can we verify⁽⁺⁾ this sense?) (preceded by "to feel") Ashamed; acutely aware of one's own offensive qualities.

   to feel obnoxious

   • 1989, Antônio Torres, Blues for a Lost Childhood: A Novel of Brazil, page 41:

     Someone jolted my arm and the contents of my glass spilled onto an immaculate white dress. I felt obnoxious.

   • 2013, Catherine Hilterbrant, Drive-by Psychosis, →ISBN, page 51:

     I always feel out of place when I am around people. I feel obnoxious if I laugh or talk too much.

   • 2013, Molly Cutpurse, Dark Man, →ISBN, page 44:

     He felt obnoxious and knew perfectly well that he would have no explanation whatsoever had anyone discovered him, but she looked so alluring, so untroubled, so fortunate, that his only concern was the terrible crack the shutter made...quiet as it was.

3. (archaic) exposed to harm or injury.
   • 1661, Robert Boyle, The Sceptical Chymist, page 26,

     To begin then with his Experiment of the burning Wood, it seems to me to be obnoxious to not a few considerable Exceptions.

• annoying    [WS]
• unpleasant    [WS]

• “obnoxious” in Douglas Harper, Online Etymology Dictionary, 2001–2019.