fearsome

Etymology

It is formed from English fear + -some.^[2][3][4][5] The OED and the Shorter Oxford take the base as either the noun or the verb,^[2][4] Etymonline as the noun.^[3] The noun is from Old English fǣr (“calamity, sudden danger”),^[3][6] from Proto-Germanic *feraz (“danger”);^[3] the suffix is from Old English -sum, related to some and same.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Causing fear; frightful, dreadful: 1768, in A. Ross's pastoral tale The Fortunate Shepherdess.^[2][6][3] Dictionary.com dates it 1760–70.^[5]

Semantic evolution

The word was long chiefly Scottish and northern: Wright's English Dialect Dictionary found it in general dialect use in Scotland and England, with the forms faersome in Shetland, furesom in West Yorkshire and fyersome in Lancashire, also as an adverb, and quoted Scott (1818), Barrie and many Scottish writers.^[7] The sense "timid, frightened" is recorded from 1863;^[2] the 1989 edition of the OED marked it as possibly an error,^[8] and Etymonline calls it a bad use, since that sense belongs to fearful.^[3] In modern use the word is often a mere intensifier, "intense, extreme", as in fearsome determination.^[9][6] In the American South, the Dictionary of American Regional English records it from the 1930s as an adjective and adverb meaning powerful or powerfully, severe or severely, in Florida and Tennessee.^[10]

Timeline

• 1768 – causing fear, frightful.^[2][6]
• 1863 – timid, frightened.^[2]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Causing or able to cause fear; frightening, especially in appearance: a fearsome guard dog.^{[11][6][12][2]}
2. Very great or intense; formidable: She brought fearsome energy to the campaign.^[9][6]
3. Timid; afraid.^{[11][9][12][2]}

Word family

• fearsomely
• fearsomeness

Related words

• fear
• fearful

Usage notes

Etymonline holds that fearsome should not be used for "timid", a sense it reserves for fearful;^[3] the 1989 edition of the OED queried that sense as erroneous,^[8] though the American Heritage Dictionary, Merriam-Webster's Collegiate and Collins all record it.^[11][9][12]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
6. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ 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)
8. ^ a b Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
10. ^ Cassidy, Frederic G. & Joan Houston Hall (eds.) (1985–2002), Dictionary of American Regional English, vols I–IV, Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press
11. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
12. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins