The Collaborative International Dictionary
Diabolic \Di`a*bol"ic\, Diabolical \Di`a*bol"ic*al\, a. [L. diabolicus, Gr. ? devilish, slanderous: cf. F. diabolique. See Devil.]
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Pertaining to the devil; resembling, or appropriate, or appropriate to, the devil; befitting hell or satan; devilish; infernal; impious; as, a diabolic or diabolical temper or act; the diabolical expression on his face; fires lit up a diabolic scene. ``Diabolic power.''
--Milton. ``The diabolical institution.''
--Motley.Syn: devilish, mephistophelian, mephistophelean.
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showing a wicked cunning or ingenuity; as, the cold calculation and diabolic art of some statesmen.
Syn: devilish, mephistophelian, mephistophelean.
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extremely evil or cruel; atrocious; outrageously wicked; as, diabolical sorcerers under the influence of devils; diabolical torturers taking pleasure in their craft.
Syn: demonic, fiendish, hellish, infernal, nefarious, satanic. [1913 Webster + WordNet 1.5] -- Di`a*bol"ic*al*ly, adv. -- Di`a*bol"ic*al*ness, n.
Wiktionary
adv. In a diabolical manner.
WordNet
adv. as a devil; in an evil manner; "his writing could be diabolically satiric" [syn: devilishly, fiendishly]
Usage examples of "diabolically".
Synagogue of Satan to hurl thunderbolts against the Holy Apostolic See, and diabolically to decree the subjection of the Pope to the Council, the confiscation of his annates, dearer to him than the apple of his eye, and finally his own deposition.
In the Den that evening there was one world within another, though only these two, and probably the intuitive and diabolically observant Minks, perceived it.
He allows Steno to love him because she is diabolically pretty, notwithstanding her forty years, and then she is, in spite of all, a real noblewoman, which flattered him.
If the contaminant turns out to be something like this batrachotoxin, its choice is diabolically ingenious.
Either it was a deliberate attempt to kill him by a member of the Hammerton team, and most of them held a personal grudge against him, or else it was a diabolically clever and daring plot by a rival team, Seamark Cruises heading the list of suspects.
He thought that all his nerves had been elongated to an immense distance, where the outlying parts of himself were being tortured in the oubliettes of fantastic inquisitions by the use of instruments of percussion, diabolically vibrant, that were somehow identified with certain of his own body-cells.