Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Causing or capable of causing fear; frightening: a fearful howling.
- adj. Experiencing fear; frightened. See Synonyms at afraid.
- adj. Feeling or inclined to feel anxiety or apprehension; timid; nervous.
- adj. Indicating anxiety, fear, or terror: a fearful, nervous glance.
- adj. Feeling reverence, dread, or awe.
- adj. Extreme, as in degree or extent; dreadful: a fearful blunder; fearful poverty.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Feeling fear, dread, apprehension, or solicitude; afraid.
- Timid; timorous; wanting courage.
- Causing or such as to cause fear; impressing fear; frightful; dreadful; terrible; awful.
- Showing fear; produced by fear; indicative of fear.
- Synonyms Pusillanimous, cowardly, faint-hearted. Dreadful. Frightful, etc. (see awful); dire, direful, horrible, distressing, shocking.
Wiktionary
- adj. Frightening.
- adj. Frightened, filled with terror.
- adj. Terrible.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Full of fear, apprehension, or alarm; afraid; frightened.
- adj. Inclined to fear; easily frightened; without courage; timid.
- adj. Indicating, or caused by, fear.
- adj. Inspiring fear or awe; exciting apprehension or terror; terrible; frightful; dreadful.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. extremely distressing
- adj. lacking courage; ignobly timid and faint-hearted
- adj. causing fear or dread or terror
- adj. experiencing or showing fear
- adj. timid by nature or revealing timidity
Etymologies
- From fear + -ful. (Wiktionary)
Examples
“I. iii.176 (130,9) [left in the fearful guard] [W: fearless] Dr. Warburton has forgotten that _fearful_ is not only that which fears, but that which is feared or causes fear.”
“Her head held high, her expression fearful, she half expected applause.”
“But, then, two Saturdays before Christmas, 1968, I was one of three little paddyboy white kids from Brooklyn (along with Benjy and Andy, both from the same school, both in fearful awe of Alonzo the way I was, both music-freaks like me) making our way to the Fillmore East and into a sold out crowd of other paddyboy white kids ... musical thrill-seekers all, there to witness The Sam & Dave Review.”
The Huffington Post: Binky Philips: Sam & Dave Take Me to School, 1968
“Now, now jwest being dumb and fearful is no way to go through life ..”
Think Progress » Texas Board of Education cuts Thomas Jefferson out of its textbooks.
“While the behavior of a fearful dog can often be significantly ameliorated by careful training and acclimatization, on other occasions – and sometimes, despite your best efforts – a dog will remain fearful to the end of his days.”
“So fearful is its portrayal of social disease, so ruthless its stripping of the painted charms from vice, that its tendency cannot but be strongly for good.”
“We are disadvantaged by talking about longer-term fearful consequences that are harder to sell when the other side is saying, for example, that Repower America is going to make things worse "tomorrow" by causing good jobs to be lost.”
“And their fear-based tactics are much more powerful than ours, because theirs are based largely on claiming that short-term fearful consequences will happen.”
“Let us always become people of God, who in fearful situations are ready to look unto the Lord and believing in HIM, HE is in control, He will build HIS church under all peoples in this world.”
“Let us always become people of God, who in fearful situations are ready to look unto the Lord and believing in HIM, HE is in control, He will build HIS church under all peoples in the whole world.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘fearful’.
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1100
abound, technology, branch of knowled..., prognosticate, automaton, matron, an older married ..., realm, special field of ..., kingdom, annals, historical records and 981 more...
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-Ful
Words ending with -ful
doubtful, fanciful, fearful, forceful, graceful, healthful, respectful, successful, tasteful, thoughtful, pantsful
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classic695's Words
delighted, elated, energetic, excited, enthusiastic, elevated, happy, contented, fine, pleased, satisfied, compassionate and 168 more...
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feeling words
twitterpated, loquacious, ambiguous, pensive, sluggish, anxious, adventurous, curious, abandoned, absent-minded, abrasive, abused and 653 more...
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Expressions
(Facial)
pained, pitiful, reproachful, annoyed, dismissive, excited, eager, spiteful, contemptuous, passive, calm, nervous and 155 more...
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Setting the Scene: Dark and Dreary
Words that lend to the dark and dreary atmosphere of gothic literature.
dark, dreary, shroud, shrouded, veiled, skeleton, skeletal, dead, death, murky, gloomy, lugubrious and 274 more...
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MEC1 Lesson 117
hop, swing, napkin, pamper, stare down, outburst, inappropriate, amused, require, fearful, drop a class, butter up and 9 more...
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remember these words
jetty, eunoia, nouvelle, horseradish, frankensense, violet, wooden, euonym, sardoodledom, conceit, fearful, symmetry and 1 more...
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