frighten
Americanverb (used with object)
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frightens,
present (3rd person singular)
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frightened,
past participle, past
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frightening
present participle
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to make afraid or fearful; throw into a fright; terrify; scare.
- Synonyms:
- intimidate, dismay, startle, shock
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to drive (usually followed by away, off, etc.) by scaring.
to frighten away pigeons from the roof.
verb (used without object)
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frightens,
present (3rd person singular)
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frightened,
past participle, past
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frightening
present participle
verb
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to cause fear in; terrify; scare
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to drive or force to go (away, off, out, in, etc) by making afraid
Synonym Usage
Frighten, alarm, scare, terrify, terrorize, appall all mean to arouse fear in people or animals. To frighten is to shock with sudden, startling, but usually short-lived fear, especially that arising from the apprehension of physical harm: to frighten someone by a sudden noise. To alarm is to arouse the feelings through the realization of some imminent or unexpected danger: to alarm someone by a scream. To scare is to frighten, often without the presence of real danger: Horror movies really scare me. To terrify is to strike with violent, overwhelming, or paralyzing fear: to terrify a city by lawless acts. To terrorize is to terrify in a general, continued, systematic manner, either wantonly or in order to gain control: His marauding armies terrorized the countryside. To appall is to overcome or confound by dread, dismay, shock, or horror: The suffering caused by the earthquake appalled him.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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frightenernoun
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overfrightenverb
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frightenableadjective
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frightenedadjective
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frighteningadjective
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nonfrighteningadjective
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unfrighteningadjective
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frighteninglyadverb
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nonfrighteninglyadverb
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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frightensimple
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frightenssimple
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have frightenedperfect
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has frightenedperfect
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am frighteningprogressive
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are frighteningprogressive
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is frighteningprogressive
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have been frighteningperfect progressive
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has been frighteningperfect progressive
Past
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frightenedsimple
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had frightenedperfect
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was frighteningprogressive
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were frighteningprogressive
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had been frighteningperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of frighten
Explanation
To frighten is to make someone feel afraid. Your new look — pink hair, tattoos, and piercings — will probably frighten your grandparents. If horror movies and haunted houses frighten you, they scare you, and all it might take to frighten your skittish cat is the sound of the vacuum cleaner or coffee grinder. Frighten is the verb form of the noun fright. although originally the verb was also fright. The Old English source is fyrhtu, "fear, dread, trembling, or horrible sight."
Vocabulary lists containing frighten
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Terrify
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Terrify
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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:
First used by Ottoman military "mehter" bands to frighten and demoralise the enemy, cymbals were a useful tool for an empire on the warpath.
From Barron's ● Aug. 6, 2026
The alerts didn’t frighten her as much as before, she said, and her fears about the future have eased.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 2, 2026
Wildlife experts say human-bear conflicts are the result of people moving deeper into the wildlands, and that bears that wander into neighborhoods are often harmless and easy to frighten.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 17, 2026
“My concern is about the publicizing of these kinds of incidents as a tool to frighten people,” Weiser said.
From Salon ● May 14, 2026
"This little pipsqueak is trying to frighten us, but he has got a lot to learn about lying. Isn't that right, Jay?"
From "Born Behind Bars" by Padma Venkatraman
What frightens Ms. Stern most isn’t simply that the AfD might become stronger.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 18, 2026
What frightens scientists more than the sheer numbers are that the cuts are arbitrary and manifestly pernicious.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 11, 2026
It frightens me how painfully ironic it feels to cover a film about my industry’s demise when it was “The Devil Wears Prada” that pointed me here in the first place.
From Salon ● May 1, 2026
I’m not here to persuade you to fly if it frightens you that much.
From MarketWatch ● Apr. 9, 2026
He realizes something that frightens him: Inspector Becker seems to have already found Franz Seemann guilty.
From "The Boy Who Dared" by Susan Campbell Bartoletti
A woman has said she is frightened to put her heating on because the cost of domestic oil has nearly doubled.
From BBC ● Oct. 22, 2026
His attorneys had argued that the escape was instigated by a former Luster attorney who frightened him into running for his life, repeatedly telling him he’d be killed in prison.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 19, 2026
The mayor of Milan, Giuseppe Sala, said that he had witnessed "smashed shop windows, looted stores, and frightened citizens".
From Barron's ● Oct. 18, 2026
Natalie said she found the response "disappointing", adding: "I think a lot of people are already frightened and it's more frightening not knowing."
From BBC ● Sep. 24, 2026
“But—there was a unicorn. Aren’t you going to—” He was quelled with a look from Frank that almost frightened him.
From "Impossible Creatures" by Katherine Rundell
He tells me the most frightening threat was Russian drones, piloted remotely and determined to hunt down their target.
From BBC ● Oct. 16, 2026
She then considered a frightening explanation when her mother detected a funny taste to the water she kept in a bottle at her desk at Berkeley Engineering and Research.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 13, 2026
When something frightening develops gradually, we explain away warning signs because they don’t fit the world we already know.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 13, 2026
The most frightening aspect of mining engagement — the part we might not always think about — is how the tools and algorithms designed for it must change as users age out of different platforms.
From Salon ● Oct. 11, 2026
There’s one channel that has nothing but the most frightening shows about wild animals attacking one another.
From "The World According to Humphrey" by Betty G. Birney
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
