Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Causing disgust or shock; horrifying.
- adj. Causing fright; terrifying.
- adj. Informal Excessive; extreme: a frightful liar.
- adj. Informal Disagreeable; distressing: frightful weather.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Full of occasion for fright; causing or apt to excite alarm or terror; terrible; dreadful: as, a frightful chasm; a frightful tempest.
- Intolerable; shocking; hideous.
- Full of terror; fearful; alarmed.
- Synonyms Dreadful, Fearful, etc. (see awful); alarming, terrific, horrible, shocking.
Wiktionary
- adj. obsolete : Full of fright; affrighted; frightened.
- adj. Full of that which causes fright; exciting alarm; impressing terror; shocking; as, a frightful chasm, or tempest; a frightful appearance.
- adj. Used as an intensifier
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. obsolete Full of fright; affrighted; frightened.
- adj. Full of that which causes fright; exciting alarm; impressing terror; shocking.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. extreme in degree or extent or amount or impact
- adj. provoking horror
- adj. extremely distressing
Etymologies
- From Middle English frightful ("afraid"), from Old English forhtful ("fainthearted, timorous"), equivalent to fright + -ful. (Wiktionary)
Examples
“Costumed Tastoanes in frightful masks battle Saint James in a ritual dance each year on July 25th.”
“His eyes were bright and glassy, and their expression frightful to look upon.”
“Some are suspended to the vaulted roof by chains, and in frightful-looking positions; others are on the perpendicular walls.”
“Had a revolutionary change not taken place in our country, our situation now and in the years ahead would have been terrible, and we can understand perfectly that the situation in the years ahead will be terrible in countries which still find themselves in the situation Cuba was in, and even worse: millions of illiterates, a lack of technicians, a shortage of schools, a scarcity of educational and health facilities -- in short, frightful conditions that are well known to Cubans who were familiar with our own past here in all its aspects.”
“We've seen some pretty middling horrible things already, and if these two men of ours call the frightful things we have seen normal, and are planning on deliberately hunting up things that even they will consider monstrous, you and I most certainly shall stay at home! ”
“M. Anciot, and describes as a frightful old hunchback.”
“Van Helsing had not intended to recall her frightful experience.”
“No one who recalls the frightful provisions of the penal acts of”
Report of Commemorative Services with the Sermons and Addresses at the Seabury Centenary, 1883-1885.
“Do not we who go about our business in the brilliance of the morning sometimes linger to recall the frightful setting of the sun?”
“Only too clearly he remembered the first time he and Beatrice had been thrust into this weird community, bound and captive; with only too vivid distinctness he recalled the frightful indignities, perils and hardships inflicted on them.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘frightful’.
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Beautiful and Ugly
Beautiful, attractive, well-formed
Ugly, unattractive, malformedadorable, alluring, angelic, appealing, appetizing, attractive, beaming, beauteous, beautiful, becoming, beguiling, bewitching and 180 more...
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macabre
words associated with the macabre & horror.
( open list, randomness )
more:
http://www.wordnik.co...ghastly, grisly, culeus, silly, gruesome, horrid, morbid, angelic, shocking, hideous, ghoulish, frightful and 138 more...
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11250 more...
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♥
ambrosia, inamorata, gossamer, lily-white, hummingbird, roucoulement, poppy, daisy, calypso, lunula, lamb, dove and 1526 more...
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SoSheShall's list
slurp, coeur, slurple, glop, perp, fluarxx, ropechno, herrherr, burrduhherrherr, sloppy, cheezie balls, eccentric and 634 more...
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colleen's words
yellow, green, pie, blue, fur, people, incense, book, brown, avuncular, mountain, fog and 1316 more...
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Spam Names
Interesting words that came to me in spam emails in the "From" field. Read in pairs by order added, add the initial of your choice, and you'll get a list of "names."
menominee, burbled, abrasives, barrister, unfortunates, strolls, appareled, uncles, removal, elusive, significance, described and 180 more...
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big book gre
abase, abbess, abbey, abbot, abdicate, abdomen, abdominal, abduction, abed, aberration, abet, abeyance and 6691 more...
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pretty sounds
vermouth, floozy, bungalow, iota, petrify, perpetural, ricochet, chartreuse, shirk, shiver, shatter, tussle and 44 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for frightful.
bilby "Angelica, finding herself alone, abandoned in this frightful solitude, remained without movement, as if stupefied, with hands joined and eyes turned towards heaven, till at last, pouring forth a torrent of tears, she exclaimed: 'Cruel fortune, have you not yet exhausted your rage against me?'"
- Thomas Bulfinch, 'Age of Fable'. Sep 19, 2009