fright
Americannoun
-
frights
plural
-
sudden and extreme fear; a sudden terror.
- Synonyms:
- alarm, consternation, dismay
-
a person or thing of shocking, grotesque, or ridiculous appearance.
verb (used with object)
noun
-
sudden intense fear or alarm
-
a sudden alarming shock
-
informal a horrifying, grotesque, or ludicrous person or thing
she looks a fright in that hat
-
to become frightened
verb
Synonym Usage
See terror.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of fright
First recorded before 900; Middle English; Old English frytu, fyrhto; akin to German Furcht
Explanation
Fright is a feeling of fear, dread, or terror. You might scream in fright while watching a scary movie or riding a roller coaster. Some fright is so intense that it makes you jump; other fright is caused by anticipating something vaguely scary, like a trip to the dentist or an encounter with your mean neighbor after your baseball breaks her window. Although it's old fashioned, you can also use fright as a verb, to mean "cause fear." The Old English root of fright is fyrhtu, "fear, dread, trembling, or horrible sight."
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:
This year, the fright turned out to be surprisingly selective.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 30, 2026
I had dreadful stage fright and rushed my lines.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 13, 2026
Some tips for scaredy cats: If you don’t like spooky scary skeletons, creepy crawlies, or horror flicks, Halloween season can be a fright to endure.
From Slate ● Oct. 8, 2026
Things came to a head on tour, where her stage fright went into overdrive and she suffered "just terrible, terrible anxiety".
From BBC ● Sep. 6, 2026
"He said it would make me more womanly. I'd look a fright."
From "The Sun Also Rises" by Ernest Hemingway
Mark your calendar for a special Slate event: This spooky season, the midterm elections are full of frights, but Slate’s politics team is here to warn you about any jumpscares.
From Slate ● Oct. 21, 2026
Eventually, he finds himself inside a barn with anthropomorphized hay and other frights.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 27, 2026
On the field, he has impressed as a young captain and here, not without frights, he came through his toughest test so far.
From BBC ● Feb. 8, 2026
What DrownedOut learned, says Evaristo, was that minimal design with simple misdirections can go a long way in creating frights.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 7, 2025
Once the boogeyperson is done telling us about a few of her favorite frights, Agent Kozy lets us ask questions.
From "Amari and the Night Brothers" by B.B. Alston
Random Word
Spin the wheel and learn a new word!
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.
