AWFUL • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Awful

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/ˈɑfəl/ /ˈɔfəl/ Listen

Awful

adjective

1.

Exceptionally bad or displeasing. Synonyms: abominable, atrocious, dreadful, painful, terrible, unspeakable. "Abominable workmanship" , "An awful voice" , "Dreadful manners" , "A painful performance" , "Terrible handwriting" , "An unspeakable odor came sweeping into the room"

2.

Causing fear or dread or terror. Synonyms: dire, direful, dread, dreaded, dreadful, 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"

3.

Offensive or even (of persons) malicious. Synonym: nasty. "A nasty accident" , "A nasty shock" , "A nasty smell" , "A nasty trick to pull" , "Will he say nasty things at my funeral?"

4.

Inspired by a feeling of fearful wonderment or reverence. Synonym: awed. "Awful worshippers with bowed heads"

5.

Extreme in degree or extent or amount or impact. Synonyms: frightful, terrible, tremendous. "Spent a frightful amount of money"

6.

Inspiring awe or admiration or wonder. Synonyms: amazing, awe-inspiring, awesome, awing. "The Grand Canyon is an awe-inspiring sight" , "The awesome complexity of the universe" , "This sea, whose gently awful stirrings seem to speak of some hidden soul beneath" , "Westminster Hall's awing majesty, so vast, so high, so silent"

adverb

1.

Used as intensifiers. Synonyms: awfully, frightfully, terribly. "I'm awful sorry"

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WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University

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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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