Word Meanings - AWFUL - Book Publishers vocabulary database

1. Oppressing with fear or horror; appalling; terrible; as, an awful scene. "The hour of Nature's awful throes." Hemans. 2. Inspiring awe; filling with profound reverence, or with fear and admiration; fitted to inspire reverential fear; profoundly

Additional info about word: AWFUL

1. Oppressing with fear or horror; appalling; terrible; as, an awful scene. "The hour of Nature's awful throes." Hemans. 2. Inspiring awe; filling with profound reverence, or with fear and admiration; fitted to inspire reverential fear; profoundly impressive. Heaven's awful Monarch. Milton. 3. Struck or filled with awe; terror-stricken. A weak and awful reverence for antiquity. I. Watts. 4. Worshipful; reverential; law-abiding. Thrust from the company of awful men. Shak. 5. Frightful; exceedingly bad; great; -- applied intensively; as, an awful bonnet; an awful boaster. Syn. -- See Frightful.

Possible synonyms: (Same meaning words of AWFUL)

• Dreadful
• Fearful
• shocking
• monstrous
• dire
• terrible
• frightful
• terrific
• horrible
• alarming
• awful
• Timid
• hesitating
• apprehensive
• afraid
• dreadful
• Formidable
• Awful
• terrifying
• discouraging
• serious
• appalling
• fearful
• Frightful
• Terrible
• ugly
• hideous
• direful
• horrid
• Horrible
• Abominable
• detestable
• ghastly
• hateful

Related words: (words related to AWFUL)

• SERIOUS
  1. Grave in manner or disposition; earnest; thoughtful; solemn; not light, gay, or volatile. He is always serious, yet there is about his manner a graceful ease. Macaulay. 2. Really intending what is said; being in earnest; not jesting
• ABOMINABLENESS
  The quality or state of being abominable; odiousness. Bentley.
• DISCOURAGING
  Causing or indicating discouragement. -- Dis*cour"a*ging*ly, adv.
• APPREHENSIVENESS
  The quality or state of being apprehensive.
• ABOMINABLE
  1. Worthy of, or causing, abhorrence, as a thing of evil omen; odious in the utmost degree; very hateful; detestable; loathsome; execrable. 2. Excessive; large; -- used as an intensive. Note: Juliana Berners . . . informs us that in her time ,
• HESITATION
  1. The act of hesitating; suspension of opinion or action; doubt; vacillation. 2. A faltering in speech; stammering. Swift.
• FRIGHTFUL
  1. Full of fright; affrighted; frightened. See how the frightful herds run from the wood. W. Browne. 2. Full of that which causes fright; exciting alarm; impressing terror; shocking; as, a frightful chasm, or tempest; a frightful appearance. Syn.
• GHASTLY
  gastlich, gastli, fearful, causing fear, fr. gasten to terrify, AS. 1. Like a ghost in appearance; deathlike; pale; pallid; dismal. Each turned his face with a ghastly pang. Coleridge. His face was so ghastly that it could scarcely be recognized.
• FEARFULNESS
  The state of being fearful.
• SHOCKDOG
  See 1
• HORRIDLY
  In a horrid manner. Shak.
• HORRIDNESS
  The quality of being horrid.
• ALARM
  1. A summons to arms, as on the approach of an enemy. Arming to answer in a night alarm. Shak. 2. Any sound or information intended to give notice of approaching danger; a warming sound to arouse attention; a warning of danger. Sound an alarm in
• HATEFUL
  1. Manifesting hate or hatred; malignant; malevolent. And worse than death, to view with hateful eyes His rival's conquest. Dryden. 2. Exciting or deserving great dislike, aversion, or disgust; odious. Unhappy, wretched, hateful day! Shak. Syn.
• DISCOURAGEMENT
  1. The act of discouraging, or the state of being discouraged; depression or weakening of confidence; dejection. 2. That which discourages; that which deters, or tends to deter, from an undertaking, or from the prosecution of anything; a determent;
• APPALL
  1. To make pale; to blanch. The answer that ye made to me, my dear, . . . Hath so appalled my countenance. Wyatt. 2. To weaken; to enfeeble; to reduce; as, an old appalled wight. Chaucer. Whine, of its own nature, will not congeal and freeze, only
• HESITATINGLY
  With hesitation or doubt.
• DREADFUL
  1. Full of dread or terror; fearful. "With dreadful heart." Chaucer. 2. Inspiring dread; impressing great fear; fearful; terrible; as, a dreadful storm. " Dreadful gloom." Milton. For all things are less dreadful than they seem. Wordsworth. 3.
• SHOCK-HEADED
  Having a thick and bushy head of hair.
• MONSTROUS
  1. Marvelous; strange. 2. Having the qualities of a monster; deviating greatly from the natural form or character; abnormal; as, a monstrous birth. Locke. He, therefore, that refuses to do good to them whom he is bound to love ... is unnatural
• ORCHIDEOUS
  See ORCHIDACEOUS
• FATIMITE; FATIMIDE
  Descended from Fatima, the daughter and only child of Mohammed. -- n.
• AFFRIGHTFUL
  Terrifying; frightful. -- Af*fright"ful*ly, adv. Bugbears or affrightful apparitions. Cudworth.