Word.ws English Dictionary

affrighten

/əˈfɹaɪtən/

affrighten verb: to frighten.

Verb

affrighten (third-person singular simple present affrightens, present participle affrightening, simple past and past participle affrightened)

  1. (archaic) To frighten.
    • Fit tales […] to affrighten babes.1794, Robert Southey, Frederic
    • He clung affrightened to his master's knee:1810, George Crabbe, The Borough

Forms of affrighten

third-person singular presentaffrightens
present participleaffrightening
past participleaffrightened
pastaffrightened

Origin of affrighten

From a- + fright + -en.

Questions about affrighten

What does affrighten mean?
Affrighten means to frighten.
What part of speech is affrighten?
Affrighten is a verb.
How do you pronounce affrighten?
Affrighten is pronounced /əˈfɹaɪtən/.
What is the past tense of affrighten?
The past tense of affrighten is affrightened.

Words near affrighten in the dictionary

  1. affrictions
  2. affriended
  3. affright
  4. affrighted
  5. affrightedly
  6. affrighten
  7. affrightened
  8. affrightening
  9. affrightens
  10. affrighter
  11. affrighters

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: affrighten (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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