Frightening

//ˈfɹaɪtənɪŋ// adj, verb

adj, verb ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    the act of inspiring with fear wordnet
Verb
  1. 1
    present participle and gerund of frighten form-of, gerund, participle, present

    "The scientist was frightening the timid children."

Adjective
  1. 1
    Causing fear; or capable of causing fear; scary.

    "Riding the rollercoaster was a frightening experience."

  2. 2
    Awful, terrible, very bad. figuratively
Adjective
  1. 1
    causing fear or dread or terror wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
alarmingaffreuxalarmingappallingappallingawesome

Example

More examples

"Fires are less frightening today than they once were, because more and more houses are built of concrete, and concrete houses do not burn as easily as the old wooden ones."

Etymology

From frighten + -ing.

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