Gastful

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. Archaic term describing something that frightens or fills a person with terror and dread
2. Old-fashioned adjective for a thing that inspires alarm, horror, or a sense of being afraid
3. Describing something so frightening that it provokes fear, a meaning now found mainly in older literature

Etymology: "Gastful" is an older spelling of "ghastful," meaning full of fear or dread. It came into Middle English as a straightforward formation: "ghast," a verb meaning to frighten or terrify, combined with the suffix "-ful," meaning full of. The verb itself is the root of "ghastly," so the two words share a common stem. The surprise lies in the spelling. The "gh" in "ghast" reflects an Old English ancestor, "gæstan," where the consonant was pronounced differently, and English spelling later came to show it with the letters "gh." The "st" sound in this older spelling "gast" is the same one still heard in "ghastly" today, so the word has kept its original shape while its spelling has shifted around it.