frighten
verb
Simple meaning
To cause to feel fear.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
frytnIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈfɹaɪtn̩
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
verb
To cause to feel fear; to scare; to cause to feel alarm or fright.
“Avery puts a sheet over her head, pretending to be a ghost to frighten Emily.”
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C2 · Proficient (estimated)
- Frequency
- Uncommon
- Typical Use
- Primarily written
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
This meaning: To cause to feel fear; to scare; to cause to feel alarm or fright.
Used this way, frighten is a common word with a clearly unfavourable pull. It sounds natural in ordinary conversation and in expressive writing alike.
“Avery puts a sheet over her head, pretending to be a ghost to frighten Emily.”
- Emotional tone
- Negative
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Moderate
- How common
- Common
- Connotation
- Serious and weighty
- Usage feel
- Everyday but emotionally strong
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use frighten
- “The stranger who hangs around the building frightens me.”verb
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
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Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
The act of inspiring with fear.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
Cause to lose courage.
Cause to lose courage.
Related Words
Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: to cause to feel fear
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API (CC BY-SA 3.0). Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.