monstrosity

monstrosity

1. n. A ridiculously elephantine program or system, esp. one that is buggy or only marginally functional. 2. adj. The quality of being monstrous (see `Overgeneralization' in the discussion of jargonification). See also baroque.

--The Jargon File version 4.3.1, ed. ESR, autonoded by rescdsk.

Monstrosity, a character appearing in an individual animal or plant, which is very rare in the species to which it belongs. They arise in man, in the inferior animals, and in plants.

Entry from Everybody's Cyclopedia, 1912.

Mon*stros"i*ty (?), n.; pl. Monstrosities (#). [Cf. F. monstruosit'e. See Monstrous.]

The state of being monstrous, or out of the common order of nature; that which is monstrous; a monster.

South.

A monstrosity never changes the name or affects the immutability of a species. Adanson (Trans. ).

© Webster 1913.