These words refer to extreme, obvious or outrageous or offences. At its mildest, flagrant may be used to indicate what is deplorably obvious: flagrant indifference to the suffering of the poor. More commonly, however, the word is more emphatic in suggesting the public flaunting of blatant incompetence or impropriety: the proof-readers flagrant disregard of even the simplest errors; the flagrant cynicism of politicians who worked hand in glove with racketeers and gangsters. Glaring is even more emphatic about the obviousness of the failing, but is otherwise milder than flagrant in that it more often points to error, however inexcusable, than to unethical or immoral conduct: a play chockfull of glaring faults. The word might also suggest an annoyed rather than disgusted reaction: exasperated by his glaring bad manners. Occasionally, the word has the force of flagrant ; even here, however, the misconduct that stands out is stressed: the glaring betrayal of a public trust.

With gross and rank , the emphasis shifts from the obviousness of faults to their extreme or offensive nature. Gross is often used simply to mean extreme: gross unfairness. More precisely, the word suggests coarse or callous insensitivity to correct or decent standards of behaviour: gross mistreatment of a helpless child. Another reference of the word ?to heaviness ?is often implicated in this context, suggesting an almost immovable failing of great weight: an administration almost crippled by its won gross incompetence. Gross failings, however, need not be obvious: gross errors in the report that went completely unnoticed. Rank stresses disgusting offensiveness and tends to indicate moral corruption rather than simple error: the rank indecencies that occurred at the party. While the word does not necessarily suggest a public display, like flagrant , it does suggest corruption that would be obvious to anyone exposed to it: a book that brought the rank injustices of slavery to public attention. As with gross , other meanings of rank affect its shadings here, especially its references to things malodorous or overgrown: a rank system of pay-offs that should have reeked of foul play to any impartial investigator; a tangled bureaucracy filled with rank inefficiency.