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dreadful

adj
/ˈdɹɛd.fl̩/

Etymology

From Middle English dredful, dredfull, dredeful (also dreful). By surface analysis, dread + -ful.

  1. inherited from dredful

Definitions

  1. Full of something causing dread, whether

    • "...Aunt Em will surely think something dreadful has happened to me, and that will make her put on mourning..."

  2. Full of dread, whether

    • Shame to the slothful and woe to the weak one. Death to the dreadful who turn to flee. Blood to the tearing, the talon’d, the beaked one. Timor Mortis are We.

  3. Dreadfully.

    • I'm sorry, Miz Terrigan. I'm dreadful sorry.
    • You don't look so dreadful poor in the face as you did a while back.
    • "No," she replied, coolly, "and I shall want my dinner dreadful bad afore I get it, I know. You don't often feel dreadful hungry, do you, sir?
  4. ›+ 3 more definitions

    1. A shocker

      A shocker: a report of a crime written in a provokingly lurid style.

    2. A journal or broadsheet printing such reports.

    3. A shocking or sensational crime.

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

A definitional loop anchored at dreadful. Each word in the ring is defined by the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself. Scroll to it and watch.

01dreadful02dreadfully03terribly04terror05terribleness06terrible

A definitional loop anchored at dreadful. Each word in the ring appears in the definition of the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself.

6 hops · closes at dreadful

curated · pre-corpus. live cycle detection across the full graph is the next major milestone.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA