FRIGHTFUL • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Frightful

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

/frˈaɪtfəl/ Listen

adjective

Frightful adj.

Full of fright; affrighted; frightened. (Obs.) "See how the frightful herds run from the wood."

Full of that which causes fright; exciting alarm; impressing terror; shocking; as, a frightful chasm, or tempest; a frightful appearance.

Synonyms: Terrible; dreadful; alarming; fearful; terrific; awful; horrid; horrible; shocking. Frightful, Dreadful, Awful. These words all express fear. In frightful, it is a sudden emotion; in dreadful, it is deeper and more prolonged; in awful, the fear is mingled with the emotion of awe, which subdues us before the presence of some invisible power. An accident may be frightful; the approach of death is dreadful to most men; the convulsions of the earthquake are awful.

See images of 'Frightful'

Etymology of 'Frightful'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Share |

"Frightful" Quotes from Famous Books

... say of the Napoleon of Mr. Turner? called (with frightful satire) "The Exile and the Rock Limpet." He stands in the midst of a scarlet tornado looking at least forty feet high. "Ah!" says the mysterious poet from whom Mr. Turner loves ...

— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook

... usual—I found myself in the borderland of a cypress swamp. On one side was the lake, but between me and it were cypress-trees; and on the other side was the swamp itself, a dense wood growing in stagnant black water covered here and there with duckweed or some similar growth: a frightful place it seemed, the very abode of snakes and everything evil. Stories of slaves hiding in cypress swamps came into my mind. It must have been cruel treatment that drove them to it! Buzzards flew about my head, and looked at me. "He has come here to die," ...

— A Florida Sketch-Book • Bradford Torrey

... them from the want of the mother's milk. There is a regular "parental baby-slaughter"—"a massacre of the innocents"— constantly going on in England, in consequence of infants being thus deprived of their proper nutriment and just dues! The mortality from this cause is frightful, chiefly occurring among rich people who are either too grand, or, from luxury, too delicate to perform such duties; poor married women, as a rule, nurse their own children, and, in consequence ...

— Advice to a Mother on the Management of her Children • Pye Henry Chavasse

... need. The shadow of terror lurks even amid the beauty of Spenser's fairyland. In the windings of its forests we come upon dark caves, mysterious castles and huts, from which there start fearsome creatures like Despair or the giant Orgoglio, hideous hags like Occasion, wicked witches and enchanters or frightful beings like the ghostly Maleger, who wore as his helmet a dead man's skull and rode upon a tiger swift as the wind. The Elizabethan dramatists were fascinated by the terrors of the invisible world. Marlowe's Dr. ...

— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead

... the spirit raised a frightful cry, and shook its chain with such a dismal and appalling noise, that Scrooge held on tight to his chair, to save himself from falling in a swoon. But how much greater was his horror when the phantom, taking off the bandage round his head, as if it were too warm to ...

— A Christmas Carol • Charles Dickens

More quotes...