VocabularyJLPT N5 · core

ひどい

hepburn hidoi

terrible, awful, severe

Part of speech · i-adjective

Pattern visualization

no decomposition available

Examples

昨日の試験はひどく難しかった。
Yesterday's exam was terribly hard.
彼の言い方はひどい。
His way of speaking is awful.

Collocations

ひどい (hidoi, terrible / awful)ひどく (hidoku, terribly, adverb)すごい (sugoi, amazing — opposite tone)ひどい目に遭う (hidoi me ni au, suffer badly)酷い (hidoi, kanji form)

Mnemonic

Hidoi (ひどい・酷い) is an i-adjective — "terrible, awful, harsh." A negative evaluation emphasizing severe degree. Hidoi ame (torrential rain, natural severity), hidoi iikata (harsh way of speaking, moral censure), hidoi shiuchi (cruel treatment), hidoi kaze (bad cold). Adverbial hidoku — hidoku tsukareta (terribly tired). Kanji 酷 = 酉 (sake jar) + 告 — "strong like fierce alcohol," anchoring kokusho (酷暑, intense heat), zankoku (残酷, cruel), kakoku (過酷, harsh). The set phrase hidoi me ni au (have a terrible experience) is fixed. Hidoi + noun covers nature, human action, emotion intensity. Korean "sim-ha-da / kkeut-jjik-ha-da / neo-mu-ha-da / ga-hok-ha-da" parallels. Pair with sugoi (amazing) — sugoi is positive / neutral intensifier, hidoi is negative. Common intensifiers: hidoku, sugoku, totemo, meccha (casual).

Quick check

Evaluative pair: hidoi vs sugoi?