What does "dreading" mean?

present participle and gerund of dread

What is a synonym for "dreading"?

Common synonyms include: apprehension, fear, abject fear, affright, agitation, alarm.

Dreading

//ˈdɹɛdɪŋ// verb

verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Verb

1
present participle and gerund of dread form-of, gerund, participle, present

Synonyms

All synonyms

apprehension fear abject fear affright agitation alarm

Example

More examples

"Tomorrow I have my oral exam in German, which I'm not too bothered about. On Thursday, however, I have an exam on abstract algebra — specifically, ring theory — which I'm really dreading."

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.