dreadful
/ˈdred.fəl/
adjective
Origin
Old English
dredfull / drēadfull — full of dread; fearsome
Overview
Meaning Now
- Causing great fear, anxiety, or alarm.
- Very bad, unpleasant, or severe.
- Extremely poor or regrettable, especially in informal use.
Literal older meaning
full of dread; causing dread
Language path
Old English → Middle English → English
Earliest form
dredfull
Earliest period
Old English period
Journey
The adjective belongs to a productive Old English pattern in which nouns combined with -ful formed descriptive adjectives. Over time, many such words kept a literal emotional sense but also developed weaker evaluative uses, as in everyday modern English where dreadful can mean simply ‘very bad’ or ‘awful’.
Evolution
- Old English
drēadful / dredfull
“fearsome, terrible, causing dread”
Built from the noun drēad ‘dread, fear’ plus the suffix -ful.
- Middle English
dredful
“fearful, terrible, alarming”
Spelling and pronunciation were regularized as English changed.
- Modern English
dreadful
“causing fear; very bad; extremely unpleasant”
Meaning broadened from literal fearfulness to general intensity and evaluation.
Connections
Word parts
dread
root
fear, terror
-ful
suffix
full of; characterized by
Related across languages
Old High German
truot
fear, dread
German
Trauer
grief, mourning
Dutch
terror; fear
Related words
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External references use DefinedTerm semantics.