Both Uses of
diabolical
in
Middlemarch
- There was something quite diabolical in not leaving him a farthing after all.†
Chpt 4 *
- Plying among his recollections in this way, Mr. Brooke might have got along, easily to himself, and would have come back from the remotest seas without trouble; but a diabolical procedure had been set up by the enemy.†
Chpt 5
Definitions:
-
(1)
(diabolical) evil; very bad; or cruel and clever (like something of the devil)
-
(2)
(meaning too rare to warrant focus) meaning too rare to warrant focus:
More rarely (and then in British English), diabolical can mean very bad -- as in "The traffic was diabolical."