AWFUL • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Awful

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

/ˈɑfəl/ /ˈɔfəl/ Listen

adjective

Awful adj.

Oppressing with fear or horror; appalling; terrible; as, an awful scene. "The hour of Nature's awful throes."

Inspiring awe; filling with profound reverence, or with fear and admiration; fitted to inspire reverential fear; profoundly impressive. "Heaven's awful Monarch."

Struck or filled with awe; terror-stricken. (Obs.) "A weak and awful reverence for antiquity."

Worshipful; reverential; law-abiding. (Obs.) "Thrust from the company of awful men."

Frightful; exceedingly bad; great; applied intensively; as, an awful bonnet; an awful boaster. (Slang)

Synonyms: See Frightful.

See images of 'Awful'

Etymology of 'Awful'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Share |

"Awful" Quotes from Famous Books

... the city and upon the nation. Thousands upon thousands repented and accepted the Gospel; in fact, the beginning of the entire Church was Jewish. But the nation hardened its heart, and finally the tears which the Lord had shed over Jerusalem were justified in the awful siege of Jerusalem, followed by the dispersion of the nation. Ever since they have been in fulfillment of the predictions of their own prophets, scattered amongst the nations of the world, and this is continuing throughout ...

— Studies in Prophecy • Arno C. Gaebelein

... ocean, infinitely changing, Clasping the world and all its gorgeous state, Unfathomed by the intellect's wide ranging, Is awful like the form of ...

— Translations of Shakuntala and Other Works • Kaalidaasa

... rest on the line of battle, so exhausted that they could not be awakened to eat their rations; as the blood cooled and the tension on the nerves relaxed, and even the officers, faint with hunger and sickened with the awful slaughter, looked forward with apprehension to the morrow, from one indomitable heart the hope of victory had not yet vanished. In the deep silence of the night, more oppressive than the stunning roar of battle, Lee, still mounted, stood ...

— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson

... was looking extremely forlorn. "Suppose Mrs. Curtis has forgotten our frocks!" she suggested tragically, as Madge came back with her report of the house's decorations. "She has had such an awful lot to attend to that she may not have remembered that she offered to give us our frocks. Won't it be dreadful if Madeleine has to be married without our being ...

— Madge Morton's Victory • Amy D.V. Chalmers

... November comes, and everything freezes up stiff and dead except white bears And Ingens, and there's no daylight left to speak of, and you 'll be sick enough of your choice. You won't live the winter out; and it 's an awful place to die in, where the ground freezes so hard ...

— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

More quotes...