Dictionaries › English

dread

Pronunciation: /dɹɛd/

The English word “dread” has 12 meanings listed here.

verb

  1. To fear greatly.
  2. To anticipate with fear.
  3. To be in dread, or great fear.
  4. To style (the hair) into dreadlocks.

noun

  1. Great fear in view of impending evil; fearful apprehension of danger; anticipatory terror.
  2. Reverential or respectful fear; awe.
  3. Somebody or something dreaded.
  4. A person highly revered.
  5. Fury; dreadfulness.
  6. A Rastafarian.

adjective

  1. Terrible; greatly feared; dreaded.
  2. Awe-inspiring; held in fearful awe.

Etymology

From Middle English dreden, from Old English drǣdan (“to fear, dread”), aphetic form of ondrǣdan (“to fear, dread”), from Proto-West Germanic *andarādan, equivalent to Old English and- + rǣdan (whence read); corresponding to an aphesis of earlier adread. Akin to Old Saxon antdrādan, andrādan (“to fear, dread”), Old High German intrātan (“to fear”), Middle High German entrāten (“to fear, dread,…

Keep exploring: in the interactive dictionary every word of a definition is a link. Open “dread” there

More English words

About this dictionary

The English dictionary on Glottosphere has 650,529 entries with a page. Browse the English dictionary.

Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.