Word.ws English Dictionary

terror

Syllables: ter·ror/tɛɚ//ˈtɛɹɚ/

terror noun: intense dread, fright, or fear.

Noun

terror (countable and uncountable, plural terrors)

  1. Intense dread, fright, or fear.
    • The terrors with which I was seized […] were extreme.1794, William Godwin, Things as they are; or, The adventures of Caleb
    • "How thinkest thou that I rule this people? I have but a regiment of guards to do my bidding, therefore it is not by force. It is by terror. My empire is of the imagination."1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, →OCLC
    Synonyms:
    fear, afraidness
  2. (uncountable) The action or quality of causing dread; terribleness, especially such qualities in narrative fiction.
  3. (countable) Something or someone that causes such fear.
    • The Begums' ministers, on the contrary, to extort from them the disclosure of the place which concealed the treasures, were, […] after being fettered and imprisoned, led out on to a scaffold, and this array of terrours proving unavailing, the meek tempered Middleton, as a dernier resort, menaced...1788 June, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, “Mr. Sheridan’s Speech, on Summing Up the Evidence on the Second, or Begum Charge against Warren Hastings, Esq., Delivered before the High Court of Parliament...
    • The terrors of the storm1841, Ralph Waldo Emerson, (Please provide the book title or journal name)
  4. (uncountable) Terrorism.
    • a terror attack
    • the War on Terror
  5. (countable) A night terror.

Adjective

terror (comparative more terror, superlative most terror)

  1. (Philippines, slang) A strict teacher who fails most of the students.
    • I have a terror math teacher.

Proper noun capitalized: Terror

Terror

  1. (usually) The Reign of Terror during the French Revolution.
  2. (usually) Any specific one of several historical reigns of terror.

terror meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

terror in Hindi

extreme fear
दहशत dahśat, वहशत vahśat, सहम saham

terror in Tamil

நடுக்கம், கிலி, பயங்கரம்

terror in Marathi

extreme fear
दहशत dahśat
terrorism
दहशतवाद dahśatvād

terror in Urdu

extreme fear
دَہْشَت dahśat, وَحْشَت vahśat, سَہْم sahm
More languagesFewer languages
terror in Bengali
সন্ত্রাস, আতঙ্ক, শঙ্কা, ভয়ঙ্কর প্রাণী
terror in Telugu
టెర్రర్
terror in Malayalam
ഭീകരത bhīkarata, നടുക്കം naṭukkaṁ, ഭീകരം bhīkaraṁ
terror in Kannada
ಅರುಳು, ಅಗುರ‍್ವು, ದಿಗಿಲು, ಭಯ
terror in Punjabi
ਉਗਰਤਾ ugartā
terror in Gujarati
આતંક
terror in Odia
ଆତଙ୍କ
terror in Sanskrit
त्रास trāsa, भय bhaya
terror in Nepali
भय bhaya, त्रास trās
terror in Pashto
دهشت dahšat, وحشت vahšat
terror in Arabic
رُعْب ruʕb, هَوْل hawl, ذُعْر ḏuʕr, خَوْف ḵawf
terror in Malay
kengerian, dahsyat, seram
terror in Indonesian
kengerian
terror in Persian
وَحْشَت vahšat, دَهْشَت dahšat
terror in Vietnamese
sự khiếp

Examples of terror in a sentence

  • One captain, to strike terror into the rest, killed a slave and dividing heart, liver and entrails into 300 pieces made each of the slaves eat one, threatening those who refused with the same torture.1963, C.L.R. James, The Black Jacobins, 2nd Revised edition, page 9:
  • Then there came a reg'lar terror of a sou'wester same as you don't get one summer in a thousand, and blowed the shanty flat and ripped about half of the weir poles out of the sand.1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter I, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC:

All 40 example sentences with terror

Synonyms of terror

Forms of terror

Noun
pluralterrors
alternative form (obsolete)terrour
Adjective
comparativemore terror
superlativemost terror

Plural of terror: terrors

Origin of terror

From late Middle English terrour, from Old French terreur f (“terror, fear, dread”), from Latin terror (“fright, fear, terror”), from terrēre (“to frighten, terrify”), from Old Latin tr̥reō, from Proto-Italic *trozeō, from Proto-Indo-European *tre- (“to shake”), *tres- (“to tremble”).

Proper noun form of terror. Translation of French Terreur, as coined by the Thermidorian Reaction

Words formed from terror

Phrases with terror

Words that rhyme with terror

Questions about terror

What does terror mean?
Terror means intense dread, fright, or fear.
What is terror in Hindi?
Terror in Hindi is दहशत (dahśat), वहशत (vahśat), सहम (saham). See Terror meaning in Hindi.
How do you use terror in a sentence?
One captain, to strike terror into the rest, killed a slave and dividing heart, liver and entrails into 300 pieces made each of the slaves eat one, threatening those who refused with the same torture.
What part of speech is terror?
Terror can be a noun, an adjective or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce terror?
Terror is pronounced /ˈtɛɹɚ/ (US).
What is the plural of terror?
The plural of terror is terrors.

Words near terror in the dictionary

  1. territs
  2. terroir
  3. terroirist
  4. terroirists
  5. terroirs
  6. terror
  7. terror bird
  8. terror birds
  9. terror bomb
  10. terror bombed
  11. terror bombing

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: terror (page history and authors); Terror (page history and authors); terror (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); terror (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); terror (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); terror (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); ਉਗਰਤਾ (Punjabi) (page history and authors); terror (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); terror (Odia, 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.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-terror.ogg.

Cite this entry: “terror.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/terror. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.