Word.ws English Dictionary

frightfull

frightfull is the archaic form of frightful.

Meaning of frightful

Adjective

frightful (comparative more frightful, superlative most frightful)

  1. (obsolete) Afraid, frightened.
    • Ðis frigtful ðus a-biden,c. 1250, Genesis and Exodus, line 3459
  2. (obsolete) Timid, fearful, easily frightened.
    • See how the frightful herds run from the wood.1613, William Browne, Britannia's Pastorals
  3. Genuinely horrific, awful, or alarming.
  4. (excessive) 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

See all 5 meanings of frightful

Forms of frightfull

comparativemore frightfull
superlativemost frightfull

Questions about frightfull

What is frightfull the archaic form of?
Frightfull is the archaic form of frightful.

Words near frightfull in the dictionary

  1. frightensome
  2. frightfest
  3. frightfests
  4. frightful
  5. Frightful Five
  6. frightfull
  7. frightfuller
  8. frightfully
  9. frightfulness
  10. frightfulnesses
  11. frighting

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: frightfull (page history and authors); frightful (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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Cite this entry: “frightfull.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/frightfull. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.