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Dreadful   /drˈɛdfəl/   Listen
Dreadful

adjective
1.
Causing fear or dread or terror.  Synonyms: awful, dire, direful, dread, dreaded, fearful, fearsome, frightening, horrendous, horrific, terrible.  "An awful risk" , "Dire news" , "A career or vengeance so direful that London was shocked" , "The dread presence of the headmaster" , "Polio is no longer the dreaded disease it once was" , "A dreadful storm" , "A fearful howling" , "Horrendous explosions shook the city" , "A terrible curse"
2.
Exceptionally bad or displeasing.  Synonyms: abominable, atrocious, awful, painful, terrible, unspeakable.  "Abominable workmanship" , "An awful voice" , "Dreadful manners" , "A painful performance" , "Terrible handwriting" , "An unspeakable odor came sweeping into the room"
3.
Very unpleasant.



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"Dreadful" Quotes from Famous Books



... so very dreadful?" asked Ida, with a smile. "You have told me that you love me. Is that a thing to be ashamed of? Must I tell you that I am glad you came to me when you were beaten, and not when you had won? Is there anything that I ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss

... with his person. Upon my word, madam," says she, "it was very good to take this care of Miss Western; but common humanity, as well as regard to our family, requires it of us both; for it would be a dreadful ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding

... twisted into a grim smile, the effect of which was heightened by the tattooed marks—a blue rim to the mouth, with a diagonal pointed streak from each corner towards the ear. He was dressed in European-style black hat, coat, and trousers—looking very uncomfortable in the dreadful heat which, it is unnecessary to say, exists on board a steamer, under a vertical sun, during mid- day hours. This Indian was a man of steady resolution, ambitious and enterprising; very rare qualities in the race to which he belonged, ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates

... town out of which McGregor had come was more inspiring as a place in which to live. As an unemployed young man, not much given to chance companionships, Beaut had spent many long evenings wandering alone on the hillsides above his home town. There was a kind of dreadful loveliness about the place at night. The long black valley with its dense shroud of smoke that rose and fell and formed itself into fantastic shapes in the moonlight, the poor little houses clinging to the ...
— Marching Men • Sherwood Anderson

... with the commander of the ship, and startled anew by his expression of blank incredulity, the glib flow of words conned so often during the steadfast but dreadful hours spent in ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy

... enough to understand; and then she wanted to know who her papa was, and why he never came home as Masie Morrow's did. At this her mother would be terrified, and clasping her treasure close, would tell her she must never ask about her papa; he was a dreadful man. ...
— Idle Hour Stories • Eugenia Dunlap Potts

... sentimental exposure of her feelings. The thing was growing like a canker; she fought it, but the decision, the feeling of his unhappiness should she give him final rejection, roosted on her pillow. It had never come to an engagement; it had been only an understanding; but she thought of dreadful things, even of his possible suicide, whenever she contemplated giving ...
— The Readjustment • Will Irwin

... this one will not end so smoothly. Your father has such a dreadful temper. . . . I can't understand how you are able to bear as much as you do. . . . If I were in your place, Miss Janina, I know what I should do . . . and do ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont

... complexion marks of the mischief wrought by a sedentary and indoor life on a vigorous constitution adapted to the open air and violent exercise. Towering piles of papers shut him in like the walls of a tomb, and it was plain to see he was in his element amid all these dreadful documents that seemed like to bury him alive. His conversation was that of a hard-working magistrate, a man devoted to his task and whose mind never left the narrow groove of his official duties. His fiery ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France

... started up, still half asleep and wholly bewildered, when within a rod of him he heard the dreadful war-whoop. Then another more discordant voice took up the fearful cry. Joshua did very well considering that it ...
— Joe's Luck - Always Wide Awake • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... Roman merchants and the Gauls of the neighborhood brought stories of the gigantic size and strength of these northern warriors. The glare of their eyes was reported to be so fierce that it could not be borne. They were wild, wonderful, and dreadful. Young officers, patricians and knights, who had followed Caesar for a little mild experience, began to dislike the notion of these new enemies. Some applied for leave of absence; others, though ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude

... all her mind and will concentrated she drew a deep breath as the rifle was raised to her shoulder. With a stern deliberation she leveled her sights and fired. The spent deer stood, and shook, and then gazed round. There was something dreadful in the appeal of its wistful attitude. For one second the woman closed her eyes. Then they opened, and their beauty was full of resolve. Again the rifle was at her shoulder. Again the sights were leveled. Again the weapon spat out ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum

... that was dreadful,' replied Willie. 'And then what he said too! I was so sorry, Johnnie; I knew you ...
— Holiday Tales • Florence Wilford

... expenditures; the removal of commercial restrictions; and the abolition of the slave trade. He had a great contempt for "mechanical politicians," and "pedler principles." And he lived long enough to see the fulfilment of his political prophecies, and the horrors of that dreadful revolution which he had predicted and disliked, not because the principles which the French apostles of liberty advocated, were not abstractedly true, but because they were connected with excesses, and ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord

... thing, in a sad manner, but were merry. Only now and then walking into the garden, and saw how horridly the sky looks, all on a fire in the night, was enough to put us out of our wits; and, indeed, it was extremely dreadful, for it looks just as if it was at us; and the whole heaven on fire. I after supper walked in the darke down to Tower-streete, and there saw it all on fire, at the Trinity House on that side, and ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... It was a revelation of secret anguish in the past, while it contained a whole unknown future. I set out on foot, I would not wait for my carriage, I went across Paris, goaded by remorse, and gnawed by a dreadful fear that was confirmed by the first sight of my victim. In the extreme neatness and cleanliness beneath which she had striven to hid her poverty I read all the terrible sufferings of her life; she was nobly reticent about them in ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac

... rusty the poor things look!" Her voice told of deep concern. "Father says they have the scab, and it must be a dreadful disease, like leprosy. Let's go meet them, and save them the ...
— The Love Story of Abner Stone • Edwin Carlile Litsey

... it was a grand thing," Aggie said indignantly, "for him to risk being shot, and imprisoned, and all sorts of dreadful things, just ...
— With Wolfe in Canada - The Winning of a Continent • G. A. Henty

... it all, she heard a gentle tapping, and sensed the whispering presence without, her cup of dreadful unease was full. But she was not afraid. She rose, as she had done one night before, and put on her dressing-gown. For a while, standing close to the shutters, she strained her ears to catch the message whose import she knew so well. The idea of speaking to ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley

... shell against the masonry and buildings that defended the town and citadel, destroying, crushing, and burning with terrible effect, while the field artillery poured forth continuous discharges of lighter projectiles of every description then in use, sweeping with dreadful result every opposing force that appeared on the walls or other parts of the fortification. Amid the dire confusion and heavy clouds of smoke caused by the incessant cannonading the Infantry effected an entrance among the advanced mounds and trenches of petty outworks, ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest

... therefore she would obey. She had read and heard of girls who would correspond with their lovers clandestinely, would run away with their lovers, would marry their lovers as it were behind their fathers' backs. No act of this kind would she do. She had something within her which would make it dreadful to her ever to have to admit that she had been personally wrong,—some mixture of pride and principle, which was strong enough to keep her stedfast in her promised obedience. She would do nothing that could be thrown in her teeth; nothing that could ...
— Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite • Anthony Trollope

... a shirt front and he insisted on going in his bicycling suit and such a soiled red tie and oh his hair it was really like a crows nest, I don't know what Mr. and Mrs. Woodcock would have said if he had suddenly burst out with that dreadful 'Tommy Atkins.' but there poor ...
— Daisy Ashford: Her Book • Daisy Ashford

... she was among the majority in whom my father inspired interest. She talked to me in an exemplary way, and held up before me, as I remember it, a sort of blend of little Lord Fauntleroy and the dreadful child in East Lynne, as an ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson

... The thought was dreadful, her breath came and went quickly, her eyes were full of tears, and she felt as if she must rise suddenly and rush into the open air, but as she looked round the chapel she caught sight through one of the windows of the dark blue sky of night, bespangled with stars, and a glow ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine

... she wailed, "I've passed through a dreadful time since I spoke to you shortly after five o'clock. I dropped as if I had been shot when Mrs. Montagu, who was one of the picnic party, told me that a man of foreign appearance, with a scar on the left side of his face, and who said he was a doctor, came to Beachy Head ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy

... the cause of these So wondrous dreadful outrages; Yet if upon your sinne you please ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott

... faces, and the scraggy dogs that whined at their side were lashed for licking the paint off the caravans. While the storm-stead show was in the vicinity the villages suffered from an invasion of these dogs. Nothing told more truly the dreadful tale of the showman's life in winter. Sam'l Mann's was a big show, and half a dozen smaller ones, most of which were familiar to us, crawled in its wake. Others heard of its whereabouts and came in from distant parts. There was the well-known Gubbins with his ...
— Auld Licht Idyls • J.M. Barrie

... state, and surrounded by his aldermen and the magnates of the city. To the personal love which the greater part of the body bore to the young and courteous king was added the terror which the corporation justly entertained of the Lancastrian faction. They remembered the dreadful excesses which Margaret had permitted to her army in the year 1461,—what time, to use the expression of the old historian, "the wealth of London looked pale;" and how grudgingly she had been restrained from condemning her revolted metropolis to the horrors of sack and pillage. And the ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... Why shrinks the soul Back on herself, and startles at destruction? 'Tis the divinity that stirs within us; 'Tis heaven itself that points out an hereafter, And intimates eternity to man. Eternity! thou pleasing, dreadful thought!—Addison. ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern

... you managed him very well that time—very well," said he, stroking down her hair affectionately. "I—I—my child, I could never have told you of that dreadful secret; but when I found that you knew it all, my heart experienced a sensible relief. It was a selfish pleasure, I know; yet it eased me to share my secret; the burden is not half ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb

... the Dutch inflicted dreadful and unavenged cruelties on the English. This happened, however, in 1622, under James the ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill

... thing has happened, and I have married a poor man after all! Guy signed for somebody and had to pay, and Elmwood must be sold, and we are to move into a stuffy little house without Zillah, and with only one girl. It is too dreadful to think about, and I was sick for a week after Guy told me of it. I might as well have married Tom, only I like Guy the best. He looks so sorry and sad that I sometimes forget myself to pity him. I am going home to mother for a long, long time—all winter, ...
— Miss McDonald • Mary J. Holmes

... without a dollar and reached the mines that afternoon about 4 o'clock. One of the miners gave me a claim. The next morning I started my first gold mining. Father was obliged to rest after all this dreadful experience of nine or ten months. I bought myself a rocker and began to work my claim. The first day I had washed out $9.50. In eight days I had gotten out $650. After getting the gold father went to Stockton and bought a supply of groceries and started a grocery store at Scorpion Gulch. I took ...
— Sixty Years of California Song • Margaret Blake-Alverson

... thing as death, Holly, only a change, and, as you may perhaps learn in time to come, I believe that even that change could under certain circumstances be indefinitely postponed," and again he broke into one of his dreadful ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard

... drink. The dogs immediately sprang upon him, in full cry. Ascanius followed, drawing at the same time an arrow from his quiver and fitting it to the bow. As soon as he came in sight of the stag, he let fly his arrow. The arrow pierced the poor fugitive in the side, and inflicted a dreadful wound. It did not, however, bring him down. The stag bounded on down the valley toward his home, as if to seek protection from Sylvia. He came rushing into the house, marking his way with blood, ran to the covert which Sylvia had provided for his resting-place at night, and crouching down ...
— Romulus, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... our poorer countrymen: if the misery of our poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin; but how this bears on slavery, I cannot see; as well might the use of the thumb-screw be defended in one land, by showing that men in another land suffered from some dreadful disease. Those who look tenderly at the slave owner, and with a cold heart at the slave, never seem to put themselves into the position of the latter; what a cheerless prospect, with not even a hope of change! picture to yourself the chance, ever hanging over you, ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin

... It is dreadful to think that I must sit apart here and do nothing; I do not know if I can stand it out. But you see, I may be of use to these poor people, if I keep quiet, and if I threw myself in, I should have a bad job ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson

... is only one punishment for you. I am going to send you to the cellar, to think over your dreadful misdeeds, in ...
— Heidi - (Gift Edition) • Johanna Spyri

... I to buy this ring, Mrs. Abercroft? Point de jour. Oh! dreadful phrase! Allow me to present it to you, for you are the only one whom such words cannot ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli

... I forbear, and come reluctantly to the transactions of that dismal night, when in such quick succession, we felt the extremes of grief, astonishment and rage; when Heaven, in anger, for a dreadful moment suffered Hell to take the reins; when Satan with his chosen band opened the sluices of New England's blood, and sacrilegiously polluted our land with the dead bodies of her guiltless sons. Let this sad ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson

... such frights as poor Mrs. Feathertop has got?" said Dame Scratchard. "I knew what would come of HER family—all deformed, and with a dreadful sort of madness which makes them love to shovel mud with ...
— Queer Little Folks • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... and that I could see her and speak to her, and ask her what she means by the Forest," she thought. "She is gentle and sweet; she is not like the Whittredges. Why should I dislike her because she belongs to them? Oh, it is dreadful to hate people!" Celia hid her face in her hands, "but I do—I do," ...
— Mr. Pat's Little Girl - A Story of the Arden Foresters • Mary F. Leonard

... are Chloe?' she said, after a frank stride from step to step of the carriages. 'And don't mind being my maid? You do look a nice, kind creature. And I see you're a lady born; I know in a minute. You're dark, I'm fair; we shall suit. And tell me—hush!—what dreadful long eyes he has! I shall ask you presently what you think of me. I was never at the Wells before. Dear me! the coach has turned. How far off shall we hear the bells to say I'm coming? I know I'm to have bells. Mr. Beamish, Mr. Beamish! ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... revived the sinking hopes of his followers. The two children of the oak, who had covered, this movement, shared the fate of their brethren; for the cry of the Clan Chattan chief had drawn to that part of the field some of his bravest warriors. The sons of Torquil did not fall unavenged, but left dreadful marks of their swords on the persons of the dead and living. But the necessity of keeping their most distinguished soldiers around the person of their chief told to disadvantage on the general event of the combat; and so few were now the number who remained ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott

... Mr Fraser-Tytler, in his "History of Scotland," says - "So dreadful indeed was now the state of those portions of his (the King's) dominions, that, to prevent an utter dissevering from the Scottish crown, something must be done, and many were the projects suggested. At one time the King resolved to proceed to the disturbed districts in person, and fix his headquarters ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie

... his proffered handkerchief suddenly, applied it to her face, and said: "I suppose it looks dreadful." ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte

... the does and young deer crowded in behind. Not long did they there remain. A louder chorus of horrid sounds reached them, which seemed to tell of their triumph at having struck the warm scent of their victims. These dreadful howlings were too much for the timid deer, and so with a rush they were off with the speed of the wind, running directly toward the point where Mustagan had placed the two boys and the Indians. It was very fortunate for them that in this ...
— Three Boys in the Wild North Land • Egerton Ryerson Young

... nature, as also lest he should be thought to exercise his authority too insolently, and to treat too harshly men of the noblest birth and most powerful friendships in the city; and yet, if he should use them more mildly, he had a dreadful prospect of danger from them. For there was no likelihood, if they suffered less than death, they would be reconciled, but rather, adding new rage to their former wickedness, they would rush into every kind of audacity, while he himself, ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... me so hard, without compassion for my rheumatism. Mr. and Mrs. Wood, when they heard this, rose up in a passion against me. They opened the door and bade me get out. But I was a stranger, and did not know one door in the street from another, and was unwilling to go away. They made a dreadful uproar, and from that day they constantly kept cursing and abusing me. I was obliged to wash, though I was very ill. Mrs. Wood, indeed once hired a washerwoman, but she was not well treated, and would come ...
— The History of Mary Prince - A West Indian Slave • Mary Prince

... with such steady lustre as in the constancy of glowing tenderness with which, in all his wanderings, woes, and glory, he cherished the love of his sister Augusta, Mrs. Leigh. She remained unalterably attached to him through the dreadful storm of unpopularity which drove him out of England. With what convulsive gratitude he appreciated her fond fidelity, he has expressed with that passionate richness of power which no other could ever equal. Four of his most splendid poems were composed for her and addressed to her. In the ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger

... feet, staggered, gasping: "Then they are true, those dreadful rumors! You with a lover—you a married woman! Ah, my little girl—my little girl! Such things do not happen in our family. They do not! A scandal—a murder? Thank Heaven your father died ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly

... at Ithaca. Oh, what a wretch, to take my teeth! I cannot go to the classroom without my teeth. I would be the laughing-stock of the entire school! It is a dreadful state of affairs!" ...
— The Mystery at Putnam Hall - The School Chums' Strange Discovery • Arthur M. Winfield

... we first come here to live in dese bottoms de possums and foxes and things were so thick you could hardly go out- o'-doors." A fox had come along one day right where her mother was washing, and they used to catch the chickens "dreadful." ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs

... "I hope you will be able to disprove this dreadful charge, and convince her royal highness that ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach

... bottom to all the rest, when we four were together, your grandfather, you two and myself, a stranger would have been present! I should have been side by side with you in your existence, having for my only care not to disarrange the cover of my dreadful pit. Thus, I, a dead man, should have thrust myself upon you who are living beings. I should have condemned her to myself forever. You and Cosette and I would have had all three of our heads in the green cap! Does it not make you shudder? I am only the ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... diminish, largely because, for political reasons which have been indicated in the preceding chapter, Protestantism in England became almost synonymous with English patriotism. But despite drastic laws and dreadful persecutions, Roman Catholicism survived in England among a conspicuous group of people. On the other hand, the Calvinists tended somewhat to increase their numbers so that in the seventeenth century they were able to precipitate a great political and ecclesiastical conflict ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes

... that is enough," said the boy pettishly; "I cannot understand that I asked anything so dreadful; but I suppose you have too many needs of your own to have any resources ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]

... was to build a chain of forts from Cincinnati to Lake Michigan, and late in 1791 St. Clair set off to begin the work. But the Indians surprised him on a branch of the Wabash River, and inflicted on him one of the most dreadful defeats in our history. Public opinion now forced him to resign his command, which was given to Anthony Wayne, who, after two years of careful preparation, crushed the Indian power at the falls of the Maumee River in northwestern Ohio. The next year, ...
— A School History of the United States • John Bach McMaster

... long since, dear Mary, that you and I conversed on this text, 'My people would not hearken to my voice, Israel would none of me: so I gave them up to their own heart's lusts,' Psa. lxxxi. A dreadful judgment! what would become of you, dear Frances, if you were given up to the dominion of ...
— Fanny, the Flower-Girl • Selina Bunbury

... too. "Of course Maria and I know that you see what is going on as well as we do. There is some man ... she lets down a basket from her window at nights for letters, and I believe she meets him when my aunt thinks she has gone to Mass. It is dreadful. How glad we shall be when she is ...
— Olive in Italy • Moray Dalton

... "here's a dreadful leap! But we are gone so far, That, if we flinch and return in fear, Nos[116] he will cry, ...
— The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians • Henry R. Schoolcraft

... had brought her a long way, in a train. Something dreadful had happened, which had made him stop loving her. She could not guess what, for she had done nothing wrong so far as she knew: but a few days before, her nurse, a kind old woman of a comfortable fatness, had put her into a room where her ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... a dreadful face. Daddy had it. He caught it during the rubber boom and it never went away. Are you still doing things ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee

... sakes, she had no children. "Augustus feels just the same; he thinks so highly of her. Would you believe it, Mr. Lucas, that though she is a daily governess like her sister," with a sharp glance at poor little miserable me, "that that dear devoted girl takes house to house visitation in that dreadful Nightingale lane and Rowley street?" Was it my fancy, or did Mr. Lucas shrug his shoulders dubiously at this? As Mrs. Smedley paused here a moment, as though she expected an answer, he muttered, "Very praiseworthy, I am sure," ...
— Esther - A Book for Girls • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... except to such as have seen them, neither do they know with any certainty on what years they may be expected, but unfortunate are they who happen to be at sea when this tempest or tyffon takes place, as few escape the dreadful danger. In this year it was our evil fortune to be at sea in one of these terrible storms; and well it was for us that our ship was newly over-planked, and had no loading save victuals and ballast, with some gold and silver for Bengal, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr

... the man, at last running up to Israel. And with tender violence he forced him towards the box, and lifting this unwilling customer's right foot thereon, was proceeding vigorously to work, when suddenly illuminated by a dreadful suspicion, Israel, fetching the box a terrible kick, took to his false heels and ran ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville

... that she had grown to love her wayward charge, and all the manifold demands and inconveniences of illness were swallowed up in anxiety during the first anxious weeks. She allowed not only one, but two of "those dreadful nurses" to take possession of her spare rooms, submitted meekly to their orders, and saw her domestic rules and regulations put aside without a murmur of protest; but when the crisis was safely passed, and ...
— More about Pixie • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... bottle of mercurey, a wine which has given me many dreadful dawns, but which I have never known ...
— The Grim Smile of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett

... exclaimed Nan. "This is dreadful! Gypsies on this island, and they almost kidnapped you! You must tell daddy right away. We've been looking everywhere for you. We thought you were lost again. And you're all dirty and sandy!" ...
— The Bobbsey Twins on Blueberry Island • Laura Lee Hope

... Wolfe might call in the course of the week; but this Miss Meadows did not know, and she embarked in so many half speeches, and looked so mysterious and significant at her mother, that Albinia began to suspect that some dreadful truth was behind. ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge

... poor Steinau was a Schloss, which also went up in fire; disclosing certain mysteries of an almost mythical nature to the German Public. It was the Schloss of a Grafin von Callenberg, a dreadful old Dowager of Medea-Messalina type, who "always wore pistols about her;" pistols, and latterly, with more and more constancy, a brandy-bottle;—who has been much on the tongues of men for a generation back. Herr Nussler (readers recollect shifty Nussler) ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... of reasoning does not make the mistake of regarding sin as less than dreadful. Every sin has hidden in its heart a blessing; but sin as such is never a blessing. It may be necessary for Providence to allow a spirit to sink again into animalism in order that it may be taught its danger, and made to realize that only ...
— The Ascent of the Soul • Amory H. Bradford

... Hadden walked to the edge of the cliff and looked over it. To the left lay the deep and dreadful-looking pool, while close to the bank of it, placed upon a narrow strip of turf between the cliff and the commencement of the forest, was ...
— Black Heart and White Heart • H. Rider Haggard

... confines himself to one purpose. That purpose is remorseless. As he fled back over the Danube, leaving his forces to be cut to pieces, so now he is intent on being safe, careless of all. So his own selfishness frees my soul somewhat from the terrible power which he acquired over me on that dreadful night. I felt it! Oh, I felt it! Thank God, for His great mercy! My soul is freer than it has been since that awful hour. And all that haunts me is a fear lest in some trance or dream he may have used my knowledge ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker

... either crouched or running in the fields, or hanging dead in a poulterer's shop, or lastly pathetic, even dreadful-looking and in this form almost indistinguishable from a skinned cat, on the domestic table. But not many people have met a Mahatma, at least to their knowledge. Not many people know even who or what a Mahatma is. The majority of those who chance to have heard the title are apt to confuse ...
— The Mahatma and the Hare • H. Rider Haggard

... seventies, a woman named Virginia Woodhull brought down upon her defenseless head the un-Christian-like abuse of the Christian public by announcing a doctrine which seems to have been nothing more dreadful than that of an equal standard of morality for men and women. The poor woman died broken-hearted, it is said; and yet nothing that we can unearth regarding her personal life and habits would seem to have warranted the cruel gibes that were hurled at her. ...
— Sex=The Unknown Quantity - The Spiritual Function of Sex • Ali Nomad

... the division of the spoil and a battle took place between them, in the valley of the Adige above Verona, in which Tufa was slain. Frederic, with his Rugian countrymen, occupied the strong city of Ticinum (Pavia), where they spent two dreadful years, "Their minds", says an eye-witness,[55] in after-time the Bishop of that city, "were full of cruel energy which prompted them to daily crimes. In truth, they thought that each day was wasted which ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin

... horror, whose great grief had always been at having no relations, so to speak. "Dear me, how very dreadful!" ...
— Five Little Peppers and their Friends • Margaret Sidney

... Church. Gratian discussed this question in a special chapter of his Decretum.[1] Innocent III, Guala, the Dominican, and the Emperor Frederic II, as we have seen, looked upon heresy as treason against Almighty God, i.e., the most dreadful of crimes. ...
— The Inquisition - A Critical and Historical Study of the Coercive Power of the Church • E. Vacandard

... sha'n't go, you poor dear! Mercy! don't get one of those dreadful colds on to you before the wedding! Have you felt a draft? Where's another shawl?" Billy turned and cast searching eyes about the room—Billy always kept shawls everywhere for Aunt Hannah's shoulders and feet. Bertram had been known to say, indeed, that a room, according to Aunt Hannah, ...
— Miss Billy's Decision • Eleanor H. Porter

... Right Reason and the Law of Nature." He wrote on for hours, pausing from time to time to select his Latin phrases. Suddenly a hollow sense of the futility of his words, of Reason, of Nature, of everything, overcame him. What was this dreadful void at his breast? He leaned his tired, aching head on his desk and sobbed, as little Daniel had ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... the masters of the men and women whose stories are told in this book, but of them all none dared a risk so horrible as brave Father Damien in the Isle of Lepers. For his adventure among dreadful people who must give him their own dreadful disease, a Montrose or a Havelock might have had little heart, for his task had none of the excitement and glitter of the soldier's duty in war. But they are all, these men and women, good to live with, good to know, good to go with, weary ...
— The Red Book of Heroes • Leonora Blanche Lang

... 55th Regiment, exhibited the greatest courage on several occasions. On the night of the 4th August he commanded a working party in the advanced trenches in front of the Quarries; and when, in consequence of the dreadful fire to which they were exposed, some hesitation was shown, he went into the open with pick and shovel, and by thus setting an example to his men, encouraged them to persevere. In March, he volunteered ...
— Our Soldiers - Gallant Deeds of the British Army during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston

... causing the weapon to jump from my grasp. Meanwhile the bull was rushing on. He travelled for some twenty paces, and then suddenly he stopped. Faintly I reflected that he was coming back to finish me, but even the prospect of imminent and dreadful death could not rouse me into action. I was utterly spent; I ...
— Maiwa's Revenge - The War of the Little Hand • H. Rider Haggard

... was supposed to have made the Elbe, and to have been lost in the ice. The distressing tidings, or rather the terrible apprehensions caused by the absence of any authentic or reliable intelligence, were immediately forwarded to Lord Buckingham. For several days this state of dreadful suspense continued. Every fragment of news that afforded the slightest ground of hope was eagerly seized upon; and, in the anxious solicitude of that affection which appears so touchingly all throughout these letters, Lord Grenville communicated to Lord Buckingham all he could learn from ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham

... experienced, no matter how long ago, one will stimulate what I may call an abnormal memory of all the associations connected with that experience. Just now I saw the interior of that room in the Stotts' cottage so clearly that I had an image of a dreadful oleograph of Disraeli hanging on the wall. But, now, I cannot for the life of me remember whether there was such an oleograph or not. I do not remember noticing it ...
— The Wonder • J. D. Beresford

... nor the year before that, and we've stood it somehow or 'nother," answered Mrs. Thacher for the second time, while she rose to put more wood in the stove. "Seems to me 't is growing cold; I felt a draught acrost my shoulders. These nights is dreadful chill; you feel the damp right through your bones. I never saw it darker than 't was last evenin'. I thought it seemed kind o' stived up here in the kitchen, and I opened the door and looked out, and I declare I couldn't see my ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett

... into Mrs. Perch's face. "Ah, if only he hadn't worn that dreadful floppy hat of his, Mr. Sabre. It couldn't have happened on a more unfortunate day. I fully intended to see how he looked before the photographs were taken and of course it so happened I was turning a servant out of the house and couldn't attend ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson

... fists. As the process went on he warmed to the work, and did it so energetically, in his mingled anxiety and hope, that it assumed the character of hitting rather than punching—to the dismay of Alice, who thought it impossible that any human being could stand such dreadful treatment. ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne

... human race by the gift of the Gods! No other out of the entire list of plants has ever vied with you. On your account sailors sail from our shores And fearlessly conquer the threatening winds, sandbanks and Dreadful rocks. With your nourishing growth you surpass dittany, Ambrosia, and fragrant panacea. Grim diseases flee from you. To You trusting health clings as a companion, and also the merry Crowd, conversation, ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers

... out. So it ever has been! Since the day some horrid fellow used a bronze sword instead of a stone on a stick, and since Richard of the Lion Heart took to that "infernal instrument," the cross bow, because of its "dreadful power," and so earned from Providence and Pope Innocent II. "heavenly retribution," and was shot ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch

... that dreadful first Boxer night, we have begun to take affairs a good deal into our own hands, and have attempted to strike blows at this growing movement, which remains so unexplained, whenever an occasion warranted it—that is, those of us who have any spirit. Thus, on the afternoon ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale

... well yesterday," she answered. "I had a worry and a kind of fright. It is so dreadful to have the charge of all these young souls and bodies! Every young girl ought to walk, locked close, arm in arm, between two guardian angels. Sometimes I faint almost with the thought of all that I ought to do, and of my own weakness and wants—Tell ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... see again the driver was climbing into the caleche, and the wolves disappeared. This was all so strange and uncanny that a dreadful fear came upon me, and I was afraid to speak or move. The time seemed interminable as we swept on our way, now in almost complete darkness, for the rolling ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker

... same time to the kings of Portugal, Aragon, Castile, and Sicily, telling them of the extraordinary information he had received respecting the Templars, and declaring his unwillingness to believe the dreadful charges brought against them. He referred to the services rendered to Christendom by the order, and to its unblemished reputation ever since it was founded. He urged upon his fellow-sovereigns that ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... They are portrayed in a still even light, exactly as they were; the picture is one long explanation; it is as clear as a newspaper, and it reads like one. We can tell how many months that man in the foreground has worn those dreadful hobnailed boots; we can count the nails, and we notice that two or three are missing. Those disgusting corduroy trousers have hung about his legs for so many months; all the ugliness of these labourers' faces and the solid earthiness ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore

... dilate; Revolving much his father's doubtful fate. At length, composed, he join'd the suitor-throng; Hush'd in attention to the warbled song. His tender theme the charming lyrist chose. Minerva's anger, and the dreadful woes Which voyaging from Troy the victors bore, While storms vindictive intercept the store. The shrilling airs the vaulted roof rebounds, Reflecting to the queen the silver sounds. With grief renew'd the weeping fair descends; Their sovereign's step a virgin train attends: ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope

... lost baby, for at the moment I was thinking of her as once when a baby she lay for dead in my arms. Mr. Blackstone got up and left the room, and my husband rose and would have followed him; but, saying he would be back in a few minutes, he shut the door and left us. It was half an hour, a dreadful half-hour, before he returned; for to sit doing nothing, not even being carried somewhere to do something, ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald

... which was not long enough to reach the bottom, fell over the side of the boat in the deepest part of the water, and in the central part of the current, which accident was observed by a part of the family then at the front windows of the house; sudden and dreadful as the alarm was, they had the consolation of seeing the sagacious animal instantaneously follow his companion, when after diving, and making two or three abortive attempts, by laying hold of different parts of his apparel, which as repeatedly gave way or overpowered ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse

... to make the attack, which was at the break of day. But during the night the Indian benefactor ascended the height and overwhelmed the slumberers below with a vast mass of rocks. At this catastrophe only one escaped to carry the news of their dreadful fate, and he fled toward ...
— Legends, Traditions, and Laws of the Iroquois, or Six Nations, and History of the Tuscarora Indians • Elias Johnson

... been let to a young gentleman, a great hand for preserving game. Old Fulcher had not got far into the car before he put his foot into a man-trap. Hearing old Fulcher shriek, I ran up, and found him in a dreadful condition. Putting a large stick which I carried into the jaws of the trap, I contrived to prize them open, and get old Fulcher's leg out, but the leg was broken. So I ran to the caravan, and told young Fulcher of what had happened, and he and I helped his father home. A ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow

... too dreadful," commented Mrs. Bennett. "I like Major Goddard so much, and to think of his being helpless the rest of his life is most distressing. Will you let him receive company, Doctor? Because I would like to go and ...
— The Lost Despatch • Natalie Sumner Lincoln

... squeals Mildred, covering her face with her hands and backin' away. "There's been some dreadful mistake! That isn't my Hermes. He wasn't at all like that, I tell you, not ...
— Torchy • Sewell Ford

... think that there have been men like ourselves, and living in this beautiful and happy country, who I suppose had feelings and affections like ourselves, who could yet do such dreadful things." ...
— News from Nowhere - or An Epoch of Rest, being some chapters from A Utopian Romance • William Morris

... a new world," he cried, with a dreadful mirth. "It is a new planet and it shall bear my name. This star and not that other vulgar one shall be 'Lucifer, sun of the morning.' Here we will have no chartered lunacies, here we will have no gods. Here man shall be ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton

... licensed saloon, where liquor is sold to men—not to boys, except in violation of law—he turns to the private home saloon, where it is given away in unstinted measure to guests of both sexes and of all ages, and seeks to show in a series of swiftly-moving panoramic scenes the dreadful consequences that flow therefrom. ...
— Danger - or Wounded in the House of a Friend • T. S. Arthur

... As soon as this dreadful rite was completed, we were again startled by several loud bursts of laughter, which proceeded from the lower darkness of the chapel; and the Captain, on hearing them, turned to the place, and reflecting for a moment, said ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton

... interpolated Penelope somewhat ruefully, "he's so far from being Philistine that he has a dreadful faculty for making me feel ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler

... country for gold. The sun was brighter to my eyes than common—but it was the last time I should see it. The fields were gay and pleasant, and everything seemed as if this world was a kind of heaven. Oh, how sweet life was to me at that moment! 'Twas a dreadful hour, Captain Wharton, and such as you have never known. You have friends to feel for you, but I had none but a father to mourn my loss, when he might hear of it; but there was no pity, no consolation near, to soothe my anguish. Everything seemed to have deserted ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper



Words linked to "Dreadful" :   unpleasant, alarming, dread, bad, horrific



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