frightful

Etymology

It is formed from English fright + -ful.^{[2][3][4][5][6]} Fright is from Old English fyrhtu (“fear, dread”), with metathesis in Northumbrian fryhto.^[3] Middle English also had frighty, "causing fear" and "afraid".^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Frightened, fearful: before 1325, in the Middle English Genesis and Exodus, composed about 1250.^[2][7] Etymonline dates the word to the mid-13th century, and Dictionary.com to 1200–50.^[3][8]

Semantic evolution

The word first described the person who felt the fright, and only later what caused it.^[2][9] The active sense "causing fright" appeared about 1600, in the OED first in Middleton's Revengers Tragaedie (1607),^[3][2] while the old sense lasted to 1802 in the OED;^[2] Trench quotes Drayton's "wild and frightful herds" as an example of it.^[9] From 1700 the word also meant horrible or shocking, and it was soon applied loosely to anything bad or annoying.^[2][3] Johnson (1755) noted this as "a cant word among women for any thing unpleasing".^[6][3] Defoe used the plural in 1727 for frightful accessories.^[2] In dialect the old sense survived: Wright records "timid, easily frightened" for Herefordshire, East Anglia and Somerset, and a further use in Ireland and Pembrokeshire: "She's a sweet galloper, but she's very frightful in herself".^[10]

Timeline

• before 1325 – frightened, timid (obsolete in standard English after 1802).^[2][7]
• 1607 – tending to cause fright, alarming.^[2] Etymonline has about 1600.^[3]
• 1700 – horrible, shocking, dreadful, often hyperbolic.^[2][3]
• 1727 – plural noun, frightful accessories, in Defoe.^[2]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Causing fear or alarm; horrifying: a frightful scream from the cellar.^[11][5][2]
2. (informal) Very bad, unpleasant or annoying; extreme: We left the kitchen in a frightful mess.^[11][2][4]
3. (archaic) Easily frightened; timid.^[5][2][4]
4. (dialect) Alarmed, frightened.^[5][10]

Word family

• frightfully
• frightfulness
• unfrightful

Related words

• fright
• frighten

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
7. ^ a b 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)
8. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
9. ^ a b Trench, Richard Chenevix (1859), A Select Glossary of English Words Used Formerly in Senses Different from Their Present, London: John W. Parker
10. ^ a b 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)
11. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins