- present participle of terrify.
terrifying
Britishadjective
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Explanation
If something is terrifying, it makes you feel extremely afraid. Even if your little sister loves the scary roller coaster at the amusement park, you might still find it terrifying. Some people feel mildly alarmed when they see a small spider — if you have a phobia about spiders, discovering one in your bathtub is truly terrifying. This alarming adjective comes from the Latin root terrificus ("causing terror"), which it shares with terrific, a word whose meaning was originally just as scary.
Vocabulary lists containing terrifying
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
But by steering the live-action Prime Video adaptation directly into the anxieties of the zeitgeist, showrunner Eric Kripke has transformed the superhero satire into a terrifying tale about the perils of authoritarianism.
From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 10, 2026
And when my thoughts go idle, they drift to new happy memories that I’ve made all myself: A rainbow over a mountain range after a terrifying hail storm in Texas.
From Salon • Jun. 1, 2026
Spoken on a winter day in 1865, however, the words are terrifying to 10-year-old Liam.
From The Wall Street Journal • May 29, 2026
It depicted a young boy wandering lost through the Backrooms' terrifying corridors.
From Barron's • May 28, 2026
At that exact same moment, there was a terrifying roar that shook the metal building and reverberated inside Chase’s chest and all the way down to his toes.
From "Storm Runners" by Roland Smith
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
