Fearsomely

Part of speech: adverb

Definitions

1. In a way that causes fear or makes someone feel threatened
2. With a quality or manner that intensely alarms or scares others
3. Expressing strong intimidation or dread through appearance or behavior

Etymology: "Fearsomely" is a plain formation: the adjective "fearsome" with the adverb-forming suffix "-ly" added to the end. The adjective itself is built from "fear" and "-some," an old suffix meaning "having a quality of," so the word is essentially "in a fear-having way" stacked twice over. "Fear" traces back through Old English "fǣr," meaning "sudden danger" or "calamity," a sense far closer to "sudden peril" than to the emotion of dread that the word carries today. Dread, in other words, was the consequence of danger rather than its name. "-Some" meanwhile descends from Old English "-sum," which turned nouns into adjectives describing something that possesses a quality, as in "handsome" or "lonesome." Adding "-ly," from Old English "-līċe," then produced an adverb describing how something happens.

Synonyms: terrifyingly, frighteningly

Antonyms: comfortingly