dread
fearful expectation or anticipation
How often you will meet it
Rank 1,985 of 71,295 words measured. It occurs 9,052 times across 155,168 chapters — 0.004% of every word in the library.
What it means
noun
- fearful expectation or anticipation also: apprehension, apprehensiveness the student looked around the examination room with apprehension
verb
- be afraid or scared of; be frightened of also: fear I fear the winters in MoscowWe should not fear the Communists!
adjective
- causing fear or dread or terror also: awful, dire, direful, dreaded, dreadful, fearful the awful waran awful risk
dread in real books
Each sentence below was written by a published author and is taken from a different book in our library. Open one to read the passage it came from, with narration.
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With a shudder, a sense of dread indescribable, she remembered this.
Christian's Mistake · Dinah Maria Mulock Craik · Chapter 1
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Dread of displeasing my wife, or hurting her feelings, was uppermost in my mind.
In the Wilderness · Charles Dudley Warner · Chapter 1
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I dread the test, and yet this very dread convinces me of my misfortune.’
The Yellow Fairy Book: The Grateful Beasts · World Traditions (Celtic, Norse, Asian & Persian) · Chapter 1
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Shall bid all flesh await, on land or ships, The warning trump of the Apocalypse, Shattering the heavens before the dread eclipse.
Pennsylvania Pilgrim, and other poems Part 6 From — Volume I · John Greenleaf Whittier · Chapter 1
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Take heed, that in thy verse Thou dost the tale rehearse, Else dread a dead man's curse; For this I sought thee.
The Complete Poetical Works of Henry · Henry Wadsworth Longfellow · Chapter 1