frighten

verb
/ˈfɹaɪ.tən/

Etymology

From Middle English *frightenen, equivalent to fright + -en.

  1. inherited from *frightenen

Definitions

  1. To cause to feel fear

    To cause to feel fear; to scare; to cause to feel alarm or fright.

    • Avery puts a sheet over her head, pretending to be a ghost to frighten Emily.
    • His Deſign was only to frighten France, and get more Money.
    • You may frighten a pig, a goose, a frog, and even a fly, but you cannot frighten or surprise a sloth.
  2. To become scared or alarmed.

    • In fitting the White Leghorns for exhibition, it must be remembered that they are of nervous disposition and frighten easily.
    • Those male moose at the southeast arm didn't frighten very much when we docked to fly-fish one day. One was so scared of us he just walked toward us and snorted.
    • Be sneaky. Fish frighten easily.

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

A definitional loop anchored at frighten. 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.

01frighten02alarmed03panicky04panic05fright

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

5 hops · closes at frighten

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