Dredeful

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. Filled with fear or dread, feeling or showing a deep sense of terror at what might happen
2. Causing or arousing a strong fear, as in an archaic or poetic description of something frightening
3. Expressing or inspiring fearful apprehension, often used in older literature to describe a grim or terrifying mood

Etymology: Before it described something terrible, "dreadful" meant something closer to awe-inspiring. The Middle English form "dredeful" was a variant spelling of that same sense: full of dread, or inspiring fear and reverence. It is built from "dread" and the suffix "-ful," meaning "full of." "Dread" comes from Old English "ondrǣdan," to fear or to stand in awe of, and the sense of reverence was present from the start, not a later addition. The word's modern path ran through a steady weakening. Over the centuries, "dreadful" drifted from the solemn sense of fearful toward general unpleasantness, until it became a casual way of saying something was very bad or poor. "Dredeful" itself dropped out of use, leaving "dreadful" as the form that survived.