1400-1500Latinbarbarus, from Greekbarbaros ‘foreign’
Examples
EXAMPLES FROM THE CORPUS
He saw it now as his mission to establish similar normality in a barbarous land.
In many cases, perhaps, it simply meant that clergy and people were equally barbarous.
It might well be barbarous on either side of the jeweled door.
Of course we live in less barbarous times.
Still less was he interested in what he considered the barbarous traditions of the Anglo-Saxon Church which he found on his arrival.
They will also say that the Faroese method of killing whales is a barbarous way of treating an intelligent, warm-blooded mammal.
When the Persian ambassadors arrived at Athens, demanding tribute in their barbarous tongue, my heart filled with fury.
1extremely cruel in a way that is shockingSYN barbaric: The trade in exotic birds is barbarous.2wild and not civilized: a savage barbarous people—barbarously adverb