flagitious /flə-JI-shəs/. adjective. Heinous, exceedingly wicked, brutally criminal. From Latin flāgitium(shameful, disgraceful), which itself derives from flagrum (whip)…think flagellate. Seriously, think about it.
“Our heroes slaughter’d and our ships on flame,
and Crimes heap’d on crimes, shall bend your glory down,
And whelm in ruins yon flagitious town.”
(Homer, translated by Alexander Pope)
“Seigneur. My genius is not innately apt – as this flagitious nebulon opines – for excoriating the cuticle of our Gallic vernacular. But, vice-versally, I am assiduous at striving, by oars and by sail, at locupleting it with latinate superfluity.” (Francois Rabelais, translated by M.A. Screech)
“A wicked law cannot be executed by good men, and must be by bad. Flagitious men must be employed, and every act of theirs is a stab at the public peace.” (Ralph Waldo Emerson)