fearful

Etymology

It is formed from English fear + -ful, in Middle English ferful.^[2][3][4] The OED and the Shorter Oxford take the base to be the verb,^[5][6] and the Middle English Dictionary, Merriam-Webster Unabridged and Etymonline the noun.^[2][3][7] The noun is Middle English fer, from Old English fǣr (“danger, sudden calamity”).^[3][8] The verb is Middle English feren, from fǣran, itself from the noun.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Causing fear, terrible: between 1340 and 1370, in Alisaunder.^[5] Etymonline also dates it to the mid-14th century.^[7] The Middle English Dictionary's first example is Þat ferful fit may no mon fle, about 1390.^[2] The opposite sense, feeling fear, followed at once: about 1360, in the Vernon manuscript's minor poems, and about 1374, in Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde.^[5]

Semantic evolution

The adjective had both of its main senses from the start, for what causes fear and for the person who feels it.^[5][7] In Middle English the first side covered awe as well as terror: something feerful could inspire reverence, and the Wycliffite Bible uses it to render Latin terribilis.^[2] Chaucer uses it twice and Gower four times.^[9] From 1535 the second side also covered looks and words that showed fear; it meant full of awe from 1597.^[5] Two senses died out, "anxious, concerned" (1535–95) and "cautious, wary" (1526–1791).^[5][6] Johnson (1755) listed "timorous; timid", "afraid", "awful; to be reverenced" and "terrible; dreadful".^[10] From 1634 the word also weakened into an intensive for bad or annoying things, as awful, terrible and dreadful did.^[5][7] In dialect this went further: the English Dialect Dictionary records a fearful lot o' apples in north Lincolnshire, and in Cumberland and Yorkshire the adverb meaning "very", as in fearful fond o' porridge, which north Yorkshire felt to be less emphatic than awful.^[11] The simple sense "timid" was still in general dialect use in Scotland and England,^[11] though the OED calls it somewhat rare,^[5] and Etymonline says it is now less common.^[7]

Timeline

• 1340–70 – causing fear; terrible, awe-inspiring.^[5][12]
• c. 1360 – afraid of something.^[5]
• 1526 – cautious, wary (obsolete after 1791).^[5][12]
• 1535 – of looks or words, showing fear.^[5]
• 1535 – anxious, concerned (obsolete after 1595).^[5][12]
• 1597 – full of awe or reverence.^[5]
• 1634 – intensive, of bad or annoying things; also as an adverb.^[5][6]
• 1877 – in dialect, enormous in quantity.^[5][11]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Feeling fear or apprehension: Fearful of the storm, the crew turned back.^{[8][3][13][5]}
2. Easily frightened; timid.^{[8][5][11][14]}
3. Showing fear: a fearful whisper.^[8][3][5]
4. Causing fear; terrible or dreadful: a fearful roar from the cave.^{[8][3][13][5]}
5. (informal) Very great or very bad: He left a fearful mess in the kitchen.^{[13][15][6][5]}
6. Full of awe or reverence.^[5][6][3]
7. (obsolete, 1526–1791) Cautious, wary.^[5][6]
8. (obsolete, 1535–95) Anxious, concerned.^[5][6]

Adverb

1. (dialect) Very, extremely: fearful fond o' porridge.^[11][6][5]

Word family

• fearfully
• fearfulness
• overfearful
• unfearful

Related words

• fear
• fearsome

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e f g h Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
8. ^ a b c d e The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
9. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
10. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
11. ^ a b c d e Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
12. ^ a b c Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
13. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
14. ^ The Chambers Dictionary (2014), 13th ed., Edinburgh: Chambers
15. ^ Soanes, Catherine; Stevenson, Angus, eds. (2004), Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 11th ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press