Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Sudden intense fear, as of something immediately threatening; alarm. See Synonyms at fear.
- n. Informal Something extremely unsightly, alarming, or strange: Brush your hair; you look a fright.
- v. Archaic To frighten.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. Sudden and extreme fear; terror caused by the sudden appearance or prospect of danger.
- n. Anything which by its sudden occurrence or appearance may greatly startle and alarm; hence, by hyperbole, a person of a shocking, grotesque, or ridiculous appearance in either person or dress: as, she is a perfect fright.
- n. Synonyms Terror, Dismay, etc. See alarm.
- To frighten; affright; terrify; scare.
Wiktionary
- n. A state of terror excited by the sudden appearance of danger; sudden and violent fear, usually of short duration; a sudden alarm.
- n. Anything strange, ugly or shocking, producing a feeling of alarm or aversion.
- v. archaic to frighten
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A state of terror excited by the sudden appearance of danger; sudden and violent fear, usually of short duration; a sudden alarm.
- n. colloq. Anything strange, ugly or shocking, producing a feeling of alarm or aversion.
- v. To alarm suddenly; to shock by causing sudden fear; to terrify; to scare.
WordNet 3.0
- v. cause fear in
- n. an emotion experienced in anticipation of some specific pain or danger (usually accompanied by a desire to flee or fight)
Etymologies
- From Middle English fright, furht, from Old English fryhtu, fyrhto ("fright, fear, dread, trembling, horrible sight"), from Proto-Germanic *furhtīn (“fear”), from Proto-Indo-European *perg- (“to frighten; fear”). Cognate with Scots fricht ("fright"), Old Frisian fruchte ("fright"), Gothic (faúrhtei, "fear, horror, fright"). Also related to Low German frucht ("fright"), German Furcht ("fear, fright"), Danish frygt ("fear"), Swedish fruktan ("fear, fright, dread"). Albanian frikë ("fear, fright, dread, danger") and Romanian frică ("fear, fright, dread") are also cognates, although probably influenced by an early Germanic variant. (Wiktionary)
- Middle English, from Old English fyrhto, fryhto. V., from Middle English frighten, to frighten, be afraid, from Old English fyrhtan. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“-- "But consider the fright your honor put us into," replied Pat, -- "_consider the fright_!”
“McWhorter speculates on a possible connection between certain Germanic and Semitic roots, such as the English word fright compared with the Semitic root p-r-kh meaning "to fear.”
“Not what I call a fright," he asserted in an even tone.”
“I cannot advise what you call a fright, and what might be a terrible thing.”
“One of the revelations in Threepenny Memoir was how crippling Barât's stage fright is – a surprise when the Libertines are routinely voted as one of the best live bands.”
“Balm for the souls of those scarred for life by childhood encounters with balloon-twisting bogeymen in fright wigs.”
“If the NDP had begun to rise for the Aye vote, he and his caucus would have passed out in fright and shock on the spot -- and the Tories, with the distinct possibility of a majority in their sights, would have burst into song.”
“But basically it looks to me like we had little boys writing foul graffitti on the wall and running away in fright when someone objected.”
“It was a fearful cry, but the fox, leaping away in fright, did not drop the ptarmigan.”
“Fool me once: The same people whose hair is on fire now about climate change have dressed up in fright masks before.”
The Emo-Eco poetry of Al Gore Overnight Open Thread. - Moe_Lane’s blog - RedState
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘fright’.
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-ight
light, night, wight, hight, knight, fight, bright, right, fright, bight, eight, might and 174 more...
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The Pain of Texting
Words that are a pain in the ass to type in on a numerical keypad on a cell phone because they have consecutive letters that share the same button:
2 - ABC
3 - DEF
4 - GHI...defcon, hi, no, attitude, xylophone, on, monday, monkey, mono, dig, back, babble and 212 more...
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Hence
Words with definitions that have a "hence" in them.
hanger, Deet, tripe, spindlelegs, fiddle, store, pluck, snap, villain, link, comedy, particular and 410 more...
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Hyperbole
Words with definitions that have "in hyperbole" or "by hyperbole" in them.
infinite, infinitely, eternal, fright, luxurious, example, tease, rail, jillion, trope, molehill
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newGRE
mostly from magoosh
imbue, verge on, nonchalant, deliberate, timorous, futile, provisional, dissect, checked, tinged, alluring, visionary and 1046 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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Silent "H"
spaghetti, aghast, ghoul, gherkin, ghetto, hour, whether, whisk, whistle, rhythm, rhyme, ghost and 16 more...
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Tunie: French Perfume
By Great Big Sea on their CD "Sea of No Cares," 2002.
It's of a bold young smuggler
From Fortune he did sail
He rode the waves from St. Pierre
And he never saw the jailfoggy, cold, fire, lit up, sky, clicks, fifty, rocks, choir, banshee, angry, lifting and 35 more...
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staywhatyouxare's list
listless, funky, abyss, hibernation, cornucopia, onomatopoeia, mississippi, nonchalant, transcendence, fright, vacuum, frenzy and 8 more...
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Favourites
elijah, friend, gumption, gumption, frightened, fright, despair, rawr, blah, meh
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curtisology's Words
gorehound, necrophagia, decapitasm, fright, spumescence, interpolate, love, subtlety, innit
Tweets
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