Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- intransitive verb To be in terror of; fear intensely.
- intransitive verb To anticipate with alarm, distaste, or reluctance.
- intransitive verb Archaic To hold in awe or reverence.
- intransitive verb To be very afraid.
- noun Profound fear; terror.
- noun Fearful or anxious anticipation: synonym: fear.
- noun An instance of fear or fearful anticipation.
- noun A source of fear, awe, or reverence.
- noun A dreadlock.
- noun A person who wears dreadlocks.
- noun Archaic Awe; reverence.
- adjective Causing terror or fear.
- adjective Inspiring awe.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun Great fear or apprehension; tremulous anticipation of or repugnance to the happening of something: as, the dread of evil; the dread of suffering; the dread of the divine displeasure.
- noun Awe; fear united with respect; terror.
- noun A cause or object of apprehension; the person or the thing dreaded.
- noun Doubt.
- To fear in a great degree; be in shrinking apprehension or expectation of: used chiefly with reference to the future: as, to
dread death. - To cause to fear; alarm; frighten.
- To venerate; hold in respectful awe.
- To be in great fear, especially of something which may come to pass.
- Dreaded; such as to excite great fear or apprehension; terrible; frightful.
- That is to be dreaded or feared; awful; solemn; venerable: as, dread sovereign; a dread tribunal.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- intransitive verb To be in dread, or great fear.
- noun Great fear in view of impending evil; fearful apprehension of danger; anticipatory terror.
- noun Reverential or respectful fear; awe.
- noun An object of terrified apprehension.
- noun obsolete A person highly revered.
- noun obsolete Fury; dreadfulness.
- noun obsolete Doubt.
- transitive verb To fear in a great degree; to regard, or look forward to, with terrific apprehension.
- adjective Exciting great fear or apprehension; causing terror; frightful; dreadful.
- adjective Inspiring with reverential fear; awful' venerable
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- verb To
fear greatly. - verb To
anticipate with fear. - noun A great
fear . - noun Somebody or something dreaded.
- noun A
Rastafarian . - noun
dreadlock - adjective Terrible; greatly feared.
- adjective archaic Awe-inspiring; held in fearful awe.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective causing fear or dread or terror
- verb be afraid or scared of; be frightened of
- noun fearful expectation or anticipation
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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This sucks and really waiting in dread is so crushing to a mother.
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While the seamen, pointing fingers, shrink in dread, and cry, 'Turn back!'
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Our dread is to guard your poise, and to avoid intruding.
"HIgh above the mountain, an eagle calling down..." fusijui 2009
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Your hours will pass in dread and misery, and soon the bolt will fall which must ravish from you your happiness for ever.
Chapter 3 2010
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We the millions of uninsured Americans & others who cannot afford health insurance might as well go to some other planet or continue to live in dread of getting ill.
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Your hours will pass in dread and misery, and soon the bolt will fall which must ravish from you your happiness for ever.
Chapter 20 2010
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Our own Hemingway wrote so much grandiose nonsense about this so-called sport that the reader feels a certain dread as the climactic spectacle approaches — a dread heightened by the awareness that Montherlant was a matador in his teenage years.
Monster of Marriage 2010
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Then the Master, stalking forward where the murderer shrinks in dread,
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She could be intensely cold-hearted towards enemies, and her children lived in dread of disappointing her.
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But just like the unhappy parents, we watched in dread as the majority of voters, cheered on by the mainstream media, went ahead and married him anyway.
fbharjo commented on the word dread
dread to advise (put together words) against OR d read
January 23, 2007