dreadful
Americanadjective
noun
-
a periodical given to highly sensational matter.
adjective
-
extremely disagreeable, shocking, or bad
what a dreadful play
-
(intensifier)
this is a dreadful waste of time
-
causing dread; terrifying
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archaic inspiring awe
Usage
What does dreadful mean? Dreadful most commonly means extremely bad, unpleasant, or ugly.Less commonly, it can also mean causing great fear or terror, which makes sense because dreadful is the adjective form of the noun dread, meaning fear.Dreadful can also be used as an intensifier (a word that makes the meaning of the word it modifies more intense) in much the same way that awful can, as in You took a dreadful long time getting time. In cases like this, neither awful nor dreadful mean bad, but they are typically used in negative situations as opposed to positive ones.Dreadful can also be used in a more specific way as a shortened form of the term penny dreadful, the name for inexpensive illustrated books featuring violent action that were popular in Britain during the mid- and late-1800s.Example: My throat hurts, my head’s pounding, I’ve got the chills—I feel absolutely dreadful.
Other Word Forms
- dreadfulness noun
- quasi-dreadful adjective
- quasi-dreadfully adverb
Etymology
Origin of dreadful
First recorded in 1175–1225, dreadful is from the Middle English word dredful. See dread, -ful
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.
Haroun said she had "never seen rain like it. It was going sideways... it was dreadful".
From BBC
"The customer service is dreadful. I email daily to no avail. I Facebook Message daily and I am still waiting for a resolution," Ms De Gennaro said.
From BBC
“Not everything was a funny situation. We weren’t a situation comedy, a lot of it was dreadful.”
From Los Angeles Times
“This is a dreadful thing to say about a man who just got murdered by his troubled son,” British broadcaster Piers Morgan posted on X. “Delete it, Mr. President.”
From Los Angeles Times
"Alex's memories are particularly harrowing; recalling the dreadful conditions in Siberia where he, along with his mother and younger brother, struggled for survival."
From BBC
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.
