Flagrant

From Latin "flagrāns," the present participle of "flagrāre" ("to blaze, to burn"). The buried image is of a wrong so hot it is visibly ablaze — preserved in the legal phrase "in flagrante delicto," caught while the crime still burns. English narrowed the "blazing" sense to offenses too glaring to hide.

  1. adjective · /FLAY-grunt/

    Conspicuously and openly bad, with no attempt at concealment.

    A wrong committed in plain sight and without shame — a flagrant foul, a flagrant lie — where the offense is compounded by its brazenness.

    Parking across two disabled spaces was a flagrant disregard for everyone else.

    Distinct from blatant and egregious: blatant stresses being obvious, egregious stresses being extreme, and flagrant stresses being openly, defiantly wrong.