dread
to fear greatly; be in extreme apprehension of: to dread death.
to be reluctant to do, meet, or experience: I dread going to big parties.
Archaic. to hold in respectful awe.
to be in great fear.
terror or apprehension as to something in the future; great fear.
a person or thing dreaded.
dreads, Informal. dreadlocks.
Informal. a person who wears dreadlocks.
Archaic. deep awe or reverence.
greatly feared; frightful; terrible.
held in awe or reverential fear.
Origin of dread
1synonym study For dread
Other words for dread
Opposites for dread
Other words from dread
- dread·a·ble, adjective
- dread·ness, noun
- pre·dread, noun, verb (used with object)
- un·dread·ed, adjective
- un·dread·ing, adjective
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024
How to use dread in a sentence
Just like bears, they seem to spend the last months of the year hibernating in the warmth of their homes, dreading the very thought of setting a single foot outside.
The hottest gifts to buy for the friend who’s always cold | Sandra Gutierrez G. | November 20, 2020 | Popular-ScienceThat shock has passed, and in its place creeps a nihilistic dread.
Restaurants and the People Who Work in Them Need a Bailout. Let’s Finally Give Them One. | Meghan McCarron | November 19, 2020 | EaterWe also have time to fill — more hours at home, more hours alone to think about the dread and boredom of, well, all of this.
The nursing home finally had its first positive test, and that was the phone call I’d been dreading.
Ask anyone in food media about the annual jokes and dread about Thanksgiving.
Jackson was an exceptional math and science student; the dreaded Bartlett was one of his favorite professors.
Stonewall Jackson, VMI’s Most Embattled Professor | S. C. Gwynne | November 29, 2014 | THE DAILY BEASTNo, not Ebola, but rather infection with the dreaded bacterium, Yersinia pestis.
Bubonic Plague Is Back (but It Never Really Left) | Kent Sepkowitz | November 27, 2014 | THE DAILY BEASTLohse and his beleaguered fellow pledges were, he claims, forced to chug vinegar and to dine on the dreaded “vomlet.”
These pathetic folks need to accept that “jazz has replaced classical music as the dreaded incarnation of eat-your-broccoli art.”
But when she opened the door, a harem of toned and dreaded hip-hop dancers were lounging on couches staring at her.
How Aidy Bryant Stealthily Became Your Favorite ‘Saturday Night Live’ Star | Kevin Fallon | October 31, 2014 | THE DAILY BEASTOn to Gaba Tepe just in time to see the opening, the climax and the end of the dreaded Turkish counter attack.
Gallipoli Diary, Volume I | Ian HamiltonThe thought seemed to produce the dreaded object, for next moment a large hummock appeared right ahead.
The Giant of the North | R.M. BallantyneThe Berlin exchange, while war was as yet only a dreaded possibility, rose from 20 m. 50 pf.
Readings in Money and Banking | Chester Arthur PhillipsA wild buffalo is a terrible thing; he is most to be dreaded of any creature in the islands.
Alila, Our Little Philippine Cousin | Mary Hazelton WadeShe knew he had divined the one thing she had most dreaded in returning,—the crossing again the threshold of her own room.
Ramona | Helen Hunt Jackson
British Dictionary definitions for dread
/ (drɛd) /
to anticipate with apprehension or terror
to fear greatly
archaic to be in awe of
great fear; horror
an object of terror
slang a Rastafarian
archaic deep reverence
literary awesome; awe-inspiring
Origin of dread
1Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
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