dreadful
/ˈdɹɛd.fl̩/
dreadful adjective: genuinely horrific, awful, or alarming; dangerous, risky.
Adjective
dreadful (comparative more dreadful, superlative most dreadful)
- Genuinely horrific, awful, or alarming; dangerous, risky.
- "...Aunt Em will surely think something dreadful has happened to me, and that will make her put on mourning..."1900 May 17, L[yman] Frank Baum, chapter 23, in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Chicago, Ill.; New York, N.Y.: Geo[rge] M[elvin] Hill Co., →OCLC
- Unpleasant, awful, very bad (also used as an intensifier).
- Here some... Look dreadful gay in their own sparkling blood.1682, T. Creech's translation of Lucretius, De Natura Rerum, Book II, 52
- [I]ndeed I began ſincerely to hate my ſelf for a Dog, a VVretch that had been a Thief, and a Murtherer; […] I vvent about vvith my Heart full of theſe Thoughts, little better than a diſtracted Fellovv; in ſhort, running headlong into the dreadfulleſt Deſpair, and premeditated nothing but hovv to...1720, [Daniel Defoe], The Life, Adventures, and Pyracies, of the Famous Captain Singleton, London: […] J[ohn] Brotherton, […], J[ohn] Graves […], A[nne] Dodd, […], and T[homas] Warner, […], →OCLC...
- Awesome, awe-inspiring, causing feelings of reverence.
- Scared, afraid, frightened.
- Shame to the slothful and woe to the weak one.
Death to the dreadful who turn to flee.
Blood to the tearing, the talon’d, the beaked one.
Timor Mortis are We.1958, T[erence] H[anbury] White, chapter VIII, in The Once and Future King, New York, N.Y.: G. P. Putnam's Sons, →ISBN, book I (The Sword in the Stone)
- Shame to the slothful and woe to the weak one.
- Timid, easily frightened.
- Reverential, full of pious awe.
Adverb
dreadful (comparative more dreadful, superlative most dreadful)
- Dreadfully.
- I'm sorry, Miz Terrigan. I'm dreadful sorry.2003, David Davis, Of Preachers and Pagans, page 199
- You don't look so dreadful poor in the face as you did a while back.2007, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Professor At The Breakfast Table, page 130
- Synonyms:
- frightening, bad
Noun
dreadful (plural dreadfuls)
- A shocker: a report of a crime written in a provokingly lurid style.
- A journal or broadsheet printing such reports.
- A shocking or sensational crime.
dreadful meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Malayalam and Kannada
dreadful in Tamil
- பயங்கரமான, உக்கிரமான, திகிலுண்டாக்குகின்ற, தெகப்பான
dreadful in Urdu
- اندیش ناک, ہیبت ناک, خوفناک, مہیب
dreadful in Malayalam
- ഭയാനകമായ, ഭീകരമായ, ഭീഷണമായ
dreadful in Kannada
- ಅಂಜಿಸುವ, ದಿಗಿಲುಗೊಳಿಸುವ
More languagesFewer languages
- dreadful in Punjabi
- ਭਿਆਨਕ bhiānak
- dreadful in Sanskrit
- घोर ghora, भीष्म bhīṣma
- dreadful in Arabic
- فظيع
- dreadful in Persian
- افتضاح eftezâh
- dreadful in Thai
- น่ากลัว nâa-gluua, น่าหวาดพะวง
Examples of dreadful in a sentence
- After a dreadful performance in the opening 45 minutes, they upped their game after the break...2011 December 10, Marc Higginson, “Bolton 1-2 Aston Villa”, in BBC Sport:
- "No," she replied, coolly, "and I shall want my dinner dreadful bad afore I get it, I know.2015, Hesba Stretton, Jessica's first prayer: A Christian Fiction of Hesba Stretton:
Synonyms of dreadful
Forms of dreadful
| Adjective | |
|---|---|
| comparative | more dreadful |
| superlative | most dreadful |
| alternative form (archaic) | dreadfull |
| alternative form (obsolete) | dredful |
| Adverb | |
| comparative | more dreadful |
| superlative | most dreadful |
| Noun | |
| plural | dreadfuls |
Origin of dreadful
From Middle English dredful, dredfull, dredeful (also dreful). By surface analysis, dread + -ful.
Words formed from dreadful
Questions about dreadful
- What does dreadful mean?
- Dreadful means genuinely horrific, awful, or alarming; dangerous, risky.
- What is dreadful in Tamil?
- Dreadful in Tamil is பயங்கரமான, உக்கிரமான, திகிலுண்டாக்குகின்ற. See Dreadful meaning in Tamil.
- How do you use dreadful in a sentence?
- After a dreadful performance in the opening 45 minutes, they upped their game after the break...
- What part of speech is dreadful?
- Dreadful can be an adjective, an adverb or a noun.
- How do you pronounce dreadful?
- Dreadful is pronounced /ˈdɹɛd.fl̩/.
Words near dreadful in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: dreadful (page history and authors); dreadful (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); dreadful (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); dreadful (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); dreadful (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); ਭਿਆਨਕ (Punjabi) (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.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-dreadful.ogg.
Cite this entry: “dreadful.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/dreadful. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.