Dreadful

3 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Dreadful \Dread"ful\, a.
     1. Full of dread or terror; fearful. [Obs.] "With dreadful
        heart." --Chaucer.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     2. Inspiring dread; impressing great fear; fearful; terrible;


        as, a dreadful storm. " Dreadful gloom." --Milton.
        [1913 Webster]
  
              For all things are less dreadful than they seem.
                                                    --Wordsworth.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     3. Inspiring awe or reverence; awful. [Obs.] "God's dreadful
        law." --Shak.
  
     Syn: Fearful; frightful; terrific; terrible; horrible;
          horrid; formidable; tremendous; awful; venerable. See
          {Frightful}.
          [1913 Webster]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  dreadful
       adj 1: causing fear or dread or terror; "the awful war"; "an awful
              risk"; "dire news"; "a career or vengeance so direful
              that London was shocked"; "the dread presence of the
              headmaster"; "polio is no longer the dreaded disease
              it once was"; "a dreadful storm"; "a fearful howling";
              "horrendous explosions shook the city"; "a terrible
              curse" [syn: {awful}, {dire}, {direful}, {dread(a)}, {dreaded},
               {fearful}, {fearsome}, {frightening}, {horrendous}, {horrific},
               {terrible}]
       2: exceptionally bad or displeasing; "atrocious taste";
          "abominable workmanship"; "an awful voice"; "dreadful
          manners"; "a painful performance"; "terrible handwriting";
          "an unspeakable odor came sweeping into the room" [syn: {atrocious},
           {abominable}, {awful}, {painful}, {terrible}, {unspeakable}]
       3: very unpleasant

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

  178 Moby Thesaurus words for "dreadful":
     Bildungsroman, Gothic novel, abominable, alarming, appalling,
     arrant, astounding, atrocious, august, awe-inspiring, awesome,
     awful, awfully, bad, baneful, base, beastly, beneath contempt, big,
     blameworthy, brutal, comic novel, contemptible, damned, deadly,
     demonic, deplorable, despicable, detective novel, detestable,
     devilish, diabolical, dime novel, dire, direful, disgusting, dread,
     dreaded, dreadfully, egregious, enormous, epistolary novel,
     erotic novel, estimable, evil, exceedingly, feared, fearful,
     fearsome, fell, fetid, fiendish, filthy, flagitious, flagrant,
     forbidding, formidable, foul, frightening, frightful, fulsome,
     ghastly, ghoulish, grievous, grim, grisly, gross, gruesome,
     hateful, heinous, hideous, historical novel, honorable, horrendous,
     horrible, horrid, horrific, horrifying, howling, infamous,
     iniquitous, lamentable, loathsome, lousy, macabre, malefic,
     maleficent, malevolent, monstrous, morbid, nasty, nefarious,
     noisome, notorious, nouvelle, novel, novel of character,
     novel of ideas, novel of incident, novel of manners,
     novel of sensibility, novelette, novella, obnoxious, odious,
     offensive, outrageous, penny dreadful, picaresque novel, pitiable,
     pitiful, pornographic novel, problem novel, proletarian novel,
     propaganda novel, psychological novel, rank, rattling, redoubtable,
     regional novel, regrettable, remarkably, repelling, reprehensible,
     repugnant, repulsive, reverend, revolting, river novel, roman,
     roman a clef, roman-fleuve, rotten, rousing, sad, satirical novel,
     scandalous, scary, schlock, schrecklich, science-fiction novel,
     scurvy, sentimental novel, shabby, shameful, shilling,
     shilling shocker, shocking, shoddy, short story, short-short,
     sociological novel, sordid, squalid, storiette,
     stream-of-consciousness novel, strikingly, terrible, terrific,
     thesis novel, thumping, time-honored, too bad, tragic, tremendous,
     unclean, unspeakable, venerable, vignette, vile, villainous,
     whacking, wicked, woeful, worshipful, worst, worthless, wretched