Afearing

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. Archaic term describing something that frightens or fills a person with dread and alarm
2. An old-fashioned way of describing a thing or person that causes fright or terror in others
3. Obsolete wording for something that startles, unsettles or alarms the one who witnesses it

Etymology: "Afearing" is the present participle of "afear," a verb that meant "to frighten" or "to terrify" in Middle English. Its ancestor in Old English was "āfǣran," built from the perfective prefix "ā-" and "fǣran," which meant "to frighten" but also "to devour" or "to raven," as a predator does its prey. The root "fǣr" named a sudden danger, an ambush, or a calamity, so the word's core idea is a threat that comes without warning. The verb traces back to a Proto-Germanic noun, "*fērō," meaning "danger," which itself grew from a Proto-Indo-European root meaning "to try, dare, risk." So a word for daring and risk became, over many centuries, a word for the fright that danger brings.

Synonyms: frightening, scaring, alarming