Word.ws English Dictionary

Ivan the Terrible

Ivan the Terrible proper noun: ivan IV Vasilyevich, who was the Grand Prince of Moscow and all Russia from 1533, and Tsar of all Russia from 1547 until his death in 1584.

Proper noun

Ivan the Terrible

  1. Ivan IV Vasilyevich, who was the Grand Prince of Moscow and all Russia from 1533, and Tsar of all Russia from 1547 until his death in 1584.

Origin of Ivan the Terrible

A calque of Russian Ива́н Гро́зный (Iván Gróznyj), using the older “inspiring fear or terror; dangerous; powerful” (not “defective; evil”) sense of terrible.

Questions about Ivan the Terrible

What does Ivan the Terrible mean?
Ivan the Terrible means ivan IV Vasilyevich, who was the Grand Prince of Moscow and all Russia from 1533, and Tsar of all Russia from 1547 until his death in 1584.
What part of speech is Ivan the Terrible?
Ivan the Terrible is a proper noun.

Words near Ivan the Terrible in the dictionary

  1. Ivan Ivanoviches
  2. Ivan Ivanovichs
  3. Ivan Ivanovitch
  4. Ivan Ivanovitches
  5. Ivan Ivanovitchs
  6. Ivan the Terrible
  7. Ivana
  8. Ivanec
  9. Ivanenko
  10. Ivanhoe
  11. Ivanhoe East

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Ivan the Terrible (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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