Frightful

//ˈfɹaɪtfəl// adj, adv

adj, adv ·Moderate ·High school level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Full of fright, whether; Afraid, frightened. obsolete

    "Ðis frigtful ðus a-biden,"

  2. 2
    Full of fright, whether; Timid, fearful, easily frightened. obsolete

    "See how the frightful herds run from the wood."

  3. 3
    Full of something causing fright, whether; Genuinely horrific, awful, or alarming.
  4. 4
    Full of something causing fright, whether; Unpleasant, dreadful, awful (also used as an intensifier). excessive

    "Francis Urquhart: What a frightful little man. Where do they find them these days? Tim Stamper: God knows. If I had a dog like that, I'd shoot it. Francis Urquhart: Well, yes. Quite."

Adjective
  1. 1
    provoking horror wordnet
  2. 2
    extremely distressing wordnet
  3. 3
    extreme in degree or extent or amount or impact wordnet
Adverb
  1. 1
    Frightfully; very. dialectal

    "You had a lot of frightful good quotes. You must know half the books that there are."

Synonyms

All synonyms
awfulhorrifyingabhorrentabjectabominablealarming

Example

More examples

"It was frightful when my car skidded on the ice."

Etymology

From Middle English frightful (“afraid”), from Old English forhtfull (“fainthearted, timorous”). Equivalent to fright + -ful.

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