frightful
Syllables: fright·ful/ˈfɹaɪtfəl/
frightful adjective: afraid, frightened.
Adjective
frightful (comparative more frightful, superlative most frightful)
- Afraid, frightened.
- Ðis frigtful ðus a-biden,c. 1250, Genesis and Exodus, line 3459
- Timid, fearful, easily frightened.
- See how the frightful herds run from the wood.1613, William Browne, Britannia's Pastorals
- Genuinely horrific, awful, or alarming.
- Unpleasant, dreadful, awful (also used as an intensifier).
- Francis Urquhart: What a frightful little man. Where do they find them these days?
Tim Stamper: God knows. If I had a dog like that, I'd shoot it.
Francis Urquhart: Well, yes. Quite.1990, House of Cards, season 1, episode 1
- Francis Urquhart: What a frightful little man. Where do they find them these days?
Adverb
frightful (comparative more frightful, superlative most frightful)
- Frightfully; very.
- You had a lot of frightful good quotes. You must know half the books that there are.1926, Charles Edward Montague, Rough Justice, page 87
- It's a frightful long time, and I don't get many letters from him.1942, Philip Gibbs, The Long Alert, page 200
frightful meaning in Hindi, Marathi, Urdu and Malayalam
frightful in Hindi
- full of that which causes fright
- भयानक bhayānak
frightful in Marathi
- frightful, dreadful, hideous
- विकट vikaṭ
frightful in Urdu
- ڈراؤنا, خوفناک
frightful in Malayalam
- frightful; terrifying
- കിടിലം kiṭilaṁ
More languagesFewer languages
- frightful in Kannada
- ವಿಕಟ vikaṭa
- frightful in Gujarati
- વિકરાળ vikrāḷ
- frightful in Sanskrit
- घोर ghora, भीष्म bhīṣma
- frightful in Sinhala
- බිරි biri
Examples of frightful in a sentence
- This frightful and empty sensation of feeling maladapted to your surroundings is known as monachopsis.
- These are not Sherlock Holmes whodunits, but rather satisfyingly frightful reads.
- It was a time of transition, replete with astounding errors and the most frightful misachievements.
Synonyms of frightful
Forms of frightful
| Adjective | |
|---|---|
| comparative | more frightful |
| superlative | most frightful |
| alternative form | frightfull |
| Adverb | |
| comparative | more frightful |
| superlative | most frightful |
Origin of frightful
From Middle English frightful (“afraid”), from Old English forhtfull (“fainthearted, timorous”). Equivalent to fright + -ful.
Words formed from frightful
Phrases with frightful
Questions about frightful
- What does frightful mean?
- Frightful means afraid, frightened.
- What is frightful in Hindi?
- Frightful in Hindi is भयानक (bhayānak). See Frightful meaning in Hindi.
- What part of speech is frightful?
- Frightful can be an adjective or an adverb.
- How do you pronounce frightful?
- Frightful is pronounced /ˈfɹaɪtfəl/.
Words near frightful in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: frightful (page history and authors); विकट (Marathi) (page history and authors); frightful (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); കിടിലം (Malayalam) (page history and authors); ವಿಕಟ (Kannada) (page history and authors); વિકરાળ (Gujarati) (page history and authors); බිරි (Sinhala) (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-frightful.ogg.
Cite this entry: “frightful.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/frightful. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.