Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Intense, overpowering fear. See Synonyms at fear.
- n. One that instills intense fear: a rabid dog that became the terror of the neighborhood.
- n. The ability to instill intense fear: the terror of jackboots pounding down the street.
- n. Violence committed or threatened by a group to intimidate or coerce a population, as for military or political purposes.
- n. Informal An annoying or intolerable pest: that little terror of a child.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. Extreme fear or fright; violent dread.
- n. A person or thing that terrifies or strikes with terror; a cause of dread or extreme fear: often used in humorous exaggeration.
- To fill with terror.
Wiktionary
- n. uncountable intense dread, fright, or fear.
- n. countable specific instances of being intensely terrified
- n. uncountable the action or quality of causing dread; terribleness, especially such qualities in narrative fiction
- n. countable something or someone that causes such fear.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. Extreme fear; fear that agitates body and mind; violent dread; fright.
- n. That which excites dread; a cause of extreme fear.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a very troublesome child
- n. the use of extreme fear in order to coerce people (especially for political reasons)
- n. a person who inspires fear or dread
- n. an overwhelming feeling of fear and anxiety
Etymologies
- From Old French terreur ("terror, fear, dread"), from Latin accusative terrorem ("fright, fear, terror"), from terrere ("to frighten, terrify"), from Proto-Indo-European *tre- (“to shake”), Proto-Indo-European *tres- (“to tremble”). (Wiktionary)
- Middle English terrour, from Old French terreur, from Latin terror, from terrēre, to frighten. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“If Iraq is key to Bush's 'terror war' ... we're losing yahooBuzzArticleHeadline = 'If Iraq is key to Bush\'s \'terror war\' ... we\'re losing '; yahooBuzzArticleSummary =' Article: If Democrats are going to continue to acknowledge Bush\'s \'terror war\ ', they should oblige him and aggressively tie it to the quagmire in Iraq and his regime\'s wallowing failures elsewhere in the world.”
“Terrorist movements have frequently consisted of members of the educated middle classes, but there has also been agrarian terrorism, terror by the uprooted and the rejected, and trade union and working-class terror .”
“I often sat and wondered why the monster didn't flee in terror from the report of the gun.”
“Don't you love the little cartoon boy and girl running in terror from the invading Martian death rays?”
“Suffice it to say, my honest anger for the victims of Katrina used the term terror in its appropriate definition.”
“The West does not own the term terror, nor does this administration.”
“But their assassinations and long history of hostage-taking have earned FARC the label terror organization by the U.S. and the European Union.”
“But their assassinations and long history of hostage-taking has earned FARC the label terror organization by the United States and the European Union.”
“Similarly, the term terror suspects is used liberally, with little indication of what such suspicion is based on.”
“The war in terror is a subterfuge for the NeoCon agenda of promoting continuous war with the aim of establishing permanent bases across the Mid Eastern-Eurasian geographical corridor adjacent to the Caspian Sea Basin reserves.”
Think Progress » Cheney: If U.S. Troops Come Home, Osama Bin Laden Will Rule Iraq
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘terror’.
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Romanticism
Words to describe art of the Romantic Era
rebel, rebellious, angst, ambiguous, expression, expressionism, attitude, moody, bruisy, fantasy, dark, brooding and 91 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 135 more...
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ghost
This is Ghost List 2 ( the kind that go 'boo!' ) :P
( open list )
more:
http://www.wordnik.com/lists/macabrephantom, spectral, specter, spectre, spooky, poltergeist, haunt, spirit, banshee, cryptic, shadow, phantasm and 311 more...
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Vocabulary Words
words to reference while writing something
cohesive, epitome, tempered, imply, prudent, sundry, sagest, agitation, giddy, disposition, inclination, gracious and 114 more...
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The Sog Collection
My big word list.
chaos, flaccid, empirical, flotsam, cacophony, grumble, assuage, awe, romance, mortality, coalesce, fortuitous and 3282 more...
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zzyyxx's Words
plethora, drout, functional, rye, wring, doubt, cognative, weird, gnaw, surcease, rend, languish and 438 more...
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kingofbash's Words
bash, poleaxed, salacious, libertine, charlatan, aplomb, fortuitous, finagle, apoplectic, debutante, carte blanche, aardvark and 472 more...
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Basic English Vocabulary
Very basic words for ESL students.
a, abandon, ability, able, abortion, about, above, abroad, absence, absolute, absolutely, absorb and 4334 more...
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Prosie: Obama's Inaugural Address
In keeping with my other Prosies (like this one). There were a number of phrases as well as words in this speech that I found particularly compelling.
My fellow citizens: I stand here ...we did not turn b..., when we were tested, what storms may come, icy currents, virtue, hope, alarmed, depth of winter, revolution, snow, enemy, abandoned and 257 more...
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Gotim
Aries, fire, chaos, destruction, Mars, aggression, bold, competetive, conflict, raw, black, red and 165 more...
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fbharjo's Words
jumelle, kef, kenspeckle, lautitious, essentic, pilpulistic, impavid, cicurant, clou, chrysostomic, miasma, teleology and 1625 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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"A List of His MAJESTY's Ships and Ve...
Boston: Re-Printed and Sold at J. Draper's Printing-Office in Newbury-Street. (Price Sixteen Pence single.)
See the companion list, A LIST of the Men of War the French have left," 174...apollo, deptford, portsmouth, princess royal, scarborough, sutherland, william and mary, mary, fubbs, dublin, charlotte, catherine and 302 more...
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mouserie's list
Words that I find are amazing
vicissitude, mouse, indubitably, epistolary, awesome, tipperary, shadow, grimoire, hippopotomonstros..., novel, satire, confessional and 91 more...
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Moods
apathy, cuntificate, quixotic, noxious, fetid, malodorous, trepidation, expectancy, contempt, disgust, terror, fear and 149 more...
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Prosie: The Crisis
By Thomas Paine. Published on December 23, 1776 (later published as The American Crisis). Posted here as excerpts, not in entirety.
THESE are the times that try men's souls. The summer s...unlamented, wretch, bawdy-houses, ravaged, slain, widow, orphan, terror, fleeing, shrieking, horrid, brutish and 40 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for terror.
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