Word.ws English Dictionary

terrorise

terrorise is the non-Oxford British English standard spelling of terrorize.

Meaning of terrorize

Verb

terrorize (third-person singular simple present terrorizes, present participle terrorizing, simple past and past participle terrorized)

  1. (British, English, Oxford, US, transitive) To fill (someone) with terror; to terrify.
    • terrorize the population
    Synonyms:
    petrify, terrify
  2. (British, English, Oxford, US, transitive) To coerce (someone) by using threats or violence.
    Synonyms:
    bully, hector

Forms of terrorise

third-person singular presentterrorises
present participleterrorising
past participleterrorised
pastterrorised

Origin of terrorise

From terror + -ise.

Words formed from terrorise

Questions about terrorise

What is terrorise the non-Oxford British English standard spelling of?
Terrorise is the non-Oxford British English standard spelling of terrorize.

Words near terrorise in the dictionary

  1. Terrorgram
  2. Terrorgrammer
  3. Terrorgrammers
  4. terrorisation
  5. terrorisations
  6. terrorise
  7. terrorised
  8. terroriser
  9. terrorisers
  10. terrorises
  11. terrorising

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: terrorise (page history and authors); terrorize (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: “terrorise.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/terrorise. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.