Afeard

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. Experiencing a heightened emotional response of fear or terror about a particular circumstance
2. Having a sense of anxiety or fearfulness regarding an impending event or situation
3. Feeling uneasy or scared about something that might happen

Etymology: "Afeard" is an old past participle of "afear," meaning "to frighten," and its story runs through the Old English verb "fǣran," which meant "to frighten" and "to terrify." The prefix "a-" was attached to that verb in Middle English, and the result was "afear," which in turn gave rise to the form "afeard." Once "afear" became the verb, speakers treated "afeard" as the state of having been frightened, so the word settled into an adjective meaning fearful, or afraid of danger. The word is most familiar today from Shakespeare's Macbeth, where it appears in a famous exchange, and from the nursery rhyme "Fee, fi, fo, fum" that many people know without realising they are hearing a relic of older English. It survives mostly in dialect and in literary or archaic writing, where it sounds sturdier than the plain "afraid."

Synonyms: afraid, fearful, scared, frightened, terrified

Antonyms: brave, courageous, unafraid, bold, fearless