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fearful

adjective

Simple meaning

Frightening; causing fear.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

firfuhl

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US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ˈfɪɹfəl

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

adjective

  1. Frightening; causing fear.

  2. Tending to fear; timid.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
B2 · Upper Intermediate (estimated)
Frequency
Uncommon
Typical Use
Neutral / general English

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

less fearfulfearful oddsfearful nightfearful statefearful strugglefearful symmetryfearful storm

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Similar Words, What’s the Difference?

Close in meaning, but not always interchangeable.

  • alarming

    Causing apprehension, fear or alarm.

  • timorous

    Feeling fear; afraid, fearful, frightened.

  • awful

    Causing fear or horror.

  • fearsome

    Frightening, especially in appearance.

Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Word family

Words built from the same root.

  • fearlessadjectiveDerived adjective

    Oblivious of dangers or perils or calmly resolute in facing them.

More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Synonyms

Sense: frightening

timorousArchaicalarmingfrightfulfearsometerribledreaded

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.