Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use dread in a sentence

40 example sentences · verb, noun, adjective

Dread means to fear greatly. Example: “I'm dreading getting the results of the test, as it could decide my whole life.”

Examples of dread by meaning

verbTo anticipate with fear.

  • I'm dreading getting the results of the test, as it could decide my whole life.

nounGreat fear in view of impending evil; fearful apprehension of danger; anticipatory terror.

  • My visit to the doctor is filling me with dread.
  • They shared a common dread that he would begin moaning.1961 November 10, Joseph Heller, “The Soldier in White”, in Catch-22 […], New York, N.Y.: Simon and Schuster, →OCLC, page 169

More sentences with dread

  • I dread the burn of the disinfectant where it enters an open wound.From the entry burn
  • Mabel dreaded the upcoming ball and the preliminary corseting it would entail.From the entry corset
  • The shock of my friend's decapitation affected me viscerally, and I became paralyzed with dread.From the entry viscerally
  • A habitual overspender, I came to dread the arrival of my monthly bank statement.From the entry overspender
  • The house gave me a feeling of dread.From the entry feeling
  • The meeting was pervaded with an undercurrent of dread, as the managers tried not to admit that firings were looming.From the entry undercurrent
  • The operations center was pregnant with dread.From the entry operations
  • I have got the dreaded flu.From the entry dreaded
  • The ding-a-ling from the fire truck somehow filled him with more dread than its horn blasts could: for whom does that bell toll?From the entry ding-a-ling
  • He had the fear, that feeling of dread that you've done something really embarrassing.2020, Mark Ratcliffe, The Step Down: A Very Scottish Crime. From the entry fear
  • Cold canvassing was the most dreaded exercise for most insurance salesmen.2019, Kelly D. Harrison, Air Force Cop: An Autobiography, page 100. From the entry cold
  • The very first dread I worked with, Dusty, had his gate at 55 Bowen.2018, U-God [Lamont Hawkins], Raw: My Journey Into The Wu-Tang, New York, N.Y.: Picador, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 69. From the entry gate
  • We watched in dread fascination as he skipped lightly down the steps.2017, Thirteen O'Clock Press, The Call / Welcome to the Dance, →ISBN, page 178. From the entry dread fascination
  • A pocket of dread blodged into my belly about what might happen next.2016, Holly Bourne, How Hard Can Love Be?. From the entry blodge
  • We intuitively know this and so the scary zone has a dread fascination.2013, Les Robinson, Changeology, →ISBN. From the entry dread fascination
  • It was somehow the opposite of mass dread; it was mass undread.2012, Stephen Hunter, Soft Target. From the entry undread
  • Her dread was conceptualized as automysophobia, the pathological fear of being dirty.2012, Nick Haslam, Psychology in the Bathroom, →ISBN, page 59. From the entry automysophobia
  • “You don’t hafi dread to be Rasta,” as the song by Morgan Heritage says.2011, Nick Davis, “Rastafari”, in Jamaica (Culture Smart! The Essential Guide to Customs & Culture), London: Kuperard, →ISBN, chapter 3…. From the entry rasta
  • Many people who have Rasta leanings don’t always wear dreads but support the faith in other ways.2011, Nick Davis, “Rastafari”, in Jamaica (Culture Smart! The Essential Guide to Customs & Culture), London: Kuperard, →ISBN, chapter 3…. From the entry rasta
  • I had picked up the receiver with a sense of dread.2011, Wendy Hornsby, Bad Intent, →ISBN. From the entry bad news travels fast
  • The fear of intermixers was not new, nor was the dread of native customs and culture.2011, John Patrick Montaño, The Roots of English Colonialism in Ireland, page 280. From the entry intermixer
  • After years of resisting Potomac fever, was she experiencing the initial symptoms ofthis dreaded disease?2011, Roger Herst, Rabbi Gabrielle's Defiance. From the entry Potomac fever
  • Here and now those dread specters are: Divorce, Illness, Unemployment and Overspending.2008, Shayna M. Steinfeld, Bruce R. Steinfeld, The family lawyer's guide to bankruptcy: forms, tips, and strategies, page iii. From the entry Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
  • Dreading what it might say, what moronicisms it might draw him into now, he picked it up.2008, Scott Campbell, “In 916”, in Decoys: A Novel, Petal Press, →ISBN, page 141. From the entry moronicism
  • If you are a parent in New York, you dread the screamfest known as the lead test.2007 July 29, “Symptom of Neglect in New Orleans (4 Letters)”, in New York Times. From the entry screamfest
  • Dread is primordially grounded in having-been from where future and present temporalize themselves.2007, Limited Intelligence & Active Machinery. From the entry forthrow
  • For centuries human activities within the fly belt were limited because of the dreaded trypanosome infections.2007, Ethne Barnes, Diseases and Human Evolution, page 117. From the entry fly belt
  • Suddenly, you get a disconcerting attack of ponophobia, the dread of overworking or of pain.2006, Des Kennedy, The Passionate Gardener: Adventures of an Ardent Green Thumb, Greystone Books - Douglas & McIntyre Publishing Group -…. From the entry ponophobia
  • Her spare prose and dialogue give a period flavour without the dread excesses of gadzookery.2002, David Langford, The Complete Critical Assembly, Wildside Press LLC, →ISBN, page 137. From the entry gadzookery
  • I wondered what was at the root of Shingo's catoptrophobia - his irrational dread of mirrors.1999 June 28, Vctr113062 [username], “[TK3 fanfic] "Phoenix" Ch. 17, 2/3”, in rec.games.video.sony (Usenet). From the entry catoptrophobia
  • I gained the dreaded "freshman fifteen," whereas Ophi became unnaturally thin from eating too little.1997, Tali Edut, with Dyann Logwood and Ophira Edut, “HUES Magazine: The Making of a Movement”, in Leslie Heywood, Jennifer Drake…. From the entry freshman fifteen
  • But even great shtick can get old real fast: the dreaded Saturday Night Live syndrome.1995, Rik, quotee, MacUser, volume 11, MacUser Publications, page 147. From the entry shtick
  • So onerous that the dread word “genocide” is being supplanted by even more ominous words—“omnicide” and “geocide.”1989, L. S. Stavrianos, Lifelines from Our Past: A New World History, New York: Pantheon Books, page 238. From the entry omnicide
  • Some are already mothers but still (with good reason) dread labor pains.[1986, David Grambs, Dimboxes, Epopts, and Other Quidams: Words to Describe Life’s Indescribable People, Workman Publishing, →ISBN, page 124. From the entry tokophobe
  • They dread full ill I was right poor, By my forcasten company.1976, David Craig, Scottish literature and the Scottish people. From the entry forcasten
  • He's nervous and irritable and he dreads any noise or confusion — " "Ataxophobia," Tom murmured.1975, A. l. furman, Dog Stories More, →ISBN, page 36. From the entry ataxophobia
  • Weredogs dread the same things which vampires, viscera suckers, and witches fear.1968, California Folklore Society, Western folklore: Volumes 27-28. From the entry weredog

Meaning of dread

  1. verb To fear greatly.
  2. verb To anticipate with fear.
  3. verb To be in dread, or great fear.

Full definition of dread

Questions about dread in a sentence

How do you use dread in a sentence?
Dread is used as a verb, noun and adjective. For example: “I'm dreading getting the results of the test, as it could decide my whole life.”
What is a short sentence with dread?
“I have got the dreaded flu.”
What does dread mean?
Dread means to fear greatly.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: dread (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use dread in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/dread. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.