terrifying
/ˈtɛɹɪfaɪ.ɪŋ/
terrifying adjective: frightening or intimidating. Also the present participle and gerund of terrify.
Adjective
terrifying (comparative more terrifying, superlative most terrifying)
- Frightening or intimidating.
- terrifying creature
- terrifying dream
- Synonyms:
- affreux, alarming, spine-tingling, appalling, awful, eldritch, buggish, butt-clenching, buttock-clenching, dismayful
- Of a formidable nature; terrific.
- Penguin colonies that number in millions; nights that run into days, and days that run into nights; katabatic winds that scream down the ice sheets at a terrifying 180 miles per hour, and then remain equally terrifyingly still.2006 February 24, Tishani Doshi, “Meanwhile: The long view from Antarctica”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, archived from the original on 06 Apr 2023
Also used as
terrifying is also the present participle and gerund of terrify.
terrifying meaning in Hindi, Urdu, Bengali and Telugu
terrifying in Hindi
- भयावह
terrifying in Urdu
- خوفناک
terrifying in Bengali
- ভয়ংকর
terrifying in Telugu
- భయపెట్టేదిగా
More languagesFewer languages
- terrifying in Gujarati
- ભયાનક, ભયજનક
- terrifying in Odia
- ଭଯ଼ାନକ
- terrifying in Sanskrit
- घोर ghora, भीषण bhīṣaṇa
- terrifying in Nepali
- डरलाग्दो
Examples of terrifying in a sentence
- Last night's alarm turned out to be nothing, but it was terrifying at the time.
- The doomsday bomb is terrifying. It puts all other nukes to shame.
- And like so many robots, they’re an incongruent mashup of terrifying and cute.
Synonyms of terrifying
- affreux
- alarming
- spine-tingling
- appalling
- awful
- eldritch
- butt-clenching
- buttock-clenching
- dreadful
- fearful
26 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Forms of terrifying
| comparative | more terrifying |
|---|---|
| superlative | most terrifying |
Words formed from terrifying
Questions about terrifying
- What does terrifying mean?
- Terrifying means frightening or intimidating.
- What is terrifying in Hindi?
- Terrifying in Hindi is भयावह. See Terrifying meaning in Hindi.
- What part of speech is terrifying?
- Terrifying is an adjective.
- How do you pronounce terrifying?
- Terrifying is pronounced /ˈtɛɹɪfaɪ.ɪŋ/.
Words near terrifying in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: terrifying (page history and authors); terrifying (Hindi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); terrifying (Urdu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); terrifying (Bengali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); terrifying (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); terrifying (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); terrifying (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); terrifying (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-terrifying.wav.
Cite this entry: “terrifying.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/terrifying. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.