AWFUL • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Awful

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/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.

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Etymology of 'Awful'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Awful" Quotes from Famous Books

... of which afforded him any outlet. The thought of exposure was horrible; anything must be done to avoid that—disgrace to himself was bad enough; to be held up for laughter before his Cambridge friends, Randal, his London acquaintances—but disgrace to the family! That was the awful thing! ...

— The Wooden Horse • Hugh Walpole

... am trying to put some heart into myself. I am trying to make ready to enjoy the brief ecstatic future where Camilla awaits me. But I am so tired, Polycarp. And there's no disguising the fact that it's an awful nuisance never to be quite sure whether you won't fall down dead the next minute or the next second. I must go in and have another glance at that singular swindle of ...

— Hugo - A Fantasia on Modern Themes • Arnold Bennett

... of the awful slaughter were seventeen children, from two months to seven years of age, who were carried, on the evening of the massacre, by John D. Lee and others to the house of Jacob Hamblin, and afterward placed in charge ...

— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman

... tired and sleepy; they were homesick and in bad temper at their mean and unaccustomed surroundings, and were inclined to hold the Yankees responsible for it all, and they began to curse and swear in rough and bitter speech. Then there came on the most awful thunder storm I ever witnessed. Vivid flashes of lightning kept the whole heavens illuminated with a blaze of light, while a thousand electric lights would not so have turned night into day around our ...

— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler

... for you, and all you have to do is to climb out of your window into that cedar-tree—you know you can climb down that, because you are so afraid of burglars climbing up—and you can slip on my dress; you had better throw it out of the window and not try to climb in it, because my dresses tear awful easy, and we might get caught that way. Then you just sneak down to our house, and I shall be outdoors; and when you go up-stairs, if the doors should be open, and anybody should call, you can answer just like me; and I have found that light curly wig Aunt Laura wore when she had her head shaved ...

— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

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