terrify
Americanverb (used with object)
-
terrifies,
present (3rd person singular)
-
terrified,
past participle, past
-
terrifying
present participle
verb
Synonym Usage
See frighten.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
terrifysimple
-
terrifiessimple
-
have terrifiedperfect
-
has terrifiedperfect
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am terrifyingprogressive
-
are terrifyingprogressive
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is terrifyingprogressive
-
have been terrifyingperfect progressive
-
has been terrifyingperfect progressive
Past
-
terrifiedsimple
-
had terrifiedperfect
-
was terrifyingprogressive
-
were terrifyingprogressive
-
had been terrifyingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of terrify
1565–75; < Latin terrificāre, equivalent to terr ( ēre ) to frighten + -ificāre -ify
Explanation
If you terrify someone, that person is enormously frightened of you. The verb terrify is closely related to the word terror, and its Latin root is terrificus, "causing terror." While some people might say that monsters terrify them, others are terrified by heights, snakes, or speaking in public. If there's something that makes you feel a deep, horrible sense of fear, it terrifies you.
Vocabulary lists containing terrify
"The Gift of the Magi" by O. Henry
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"In the Spotlight," Vocabulary from the informational text
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The House of Hades
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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.
See Examples For:
Day 1 alone might terrify an L.A. commuter: From the Pacific to Pasadena by surface streets, including miles on Santa Monica and Colorado boulevards.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 6, 2026
The backrooms seem to exist in part to terrify entrants into redirecting their energies toward better life choices.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 28, 2026
He told Salon that equating drug traffickers with terrorist is meant to “stigmatize and terrify people.”
From Salon ● Mar. 12, 2026
Zak Brown, the chief executive officer of McLaren Racing, has called him "relentless" and likened him to a horror movie character who keeps coming back to life to terrify his victims.
From BBC ● Dec. 4, 2025
Questions from South Korean bank tellers, whom they meet on field trips to open bank accounts, often terrify defectors.
From "Escape from Camp 14: One Man's Remarkable Odyssey from North Korea to Freedom in the West" by Blaine Harden
"It terrifies me, as a father of a young one myself, that people are out there claiming to be experts when they are not."
From BBC ● May 12, 2026
“You’re walking into a very, very conflictual relationship with the U.S.—and that terrifies me. But I’m not sure if there’s any way around it. Aren’t we actually already there?”
From Slate ● Feb. 13, 2026
“As both a gun owner and an American citizen, this terrifies me.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 26, 2026
As Sailor settles into her new job on Alcatraz, she begins to shake things up, which both thrills and terrifies Camille, who has always kept her head down and followed the rules.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 8, 2025
The idea of exchanging phone numbers just terrifies me.
From "Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda" by Becky Albertalli
A patient arrived at a Denver emergency room one night terrified that he was having a heart attack.
From Slate ● Oct. 16, 2026
Mohammed, a 33-year-old charity worker who fled from Mocha to Aden, told AFP on Tuesday that "people there are terrified".
From Barron's ● Oct. 7, 2026
"I was terrified," says Sir Alex Ferguson, one of the fiercest, most explosive and most decorated managers in football history.
From BBC ● Oct. 2, 2026
I was terrified I would return to prison.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 2, 2026
It was not only the depth and endless expanse of the water that terrified me.
From "Flying Through Water" by Mamle Wolo
Gretchen Palek, head of alternative at Blumhouse Television, attributes the show’s success to the careful and sensitive approach to telling these terrifying experiences while highlighting real-life universal anxieties.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 15, 2026
"It's terrifying," she said, before adding in an apparent plea to authorities: "Please, I'm begging you, do something to stop this."
From Barron's ● Oct. 11, 2026
"It's both the most terrifying thing that can happen to you, whether you're a parent, or even if you're not," he told BBC News at the film's screening at London Film Festival.
From BBC ● Oct. 11, 2026
Norway’s scoring machine on terrifying his opponents—and the surreal World Cup summer that turned him into much more than a soccer star.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 9, 2026
It was a terrifying time—or it would have been if Lupin and Fantômas had been real.
From "The Mona Lisa Vanishes" by Nicholas Day
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
