DREAD

Pronunciation (US):

• DREAD (noun)
  The noun DREAD has 1 sense:

1. fearful expectation or anticipation

  Familiarity information: DREAD used as a noun is very rare.

• DREAD (adjective)
  The adjective DREAD has 1 sense:

1. causing fear or dread or terror

  Familiarity information: DREAD used as an adjective is very rare.

• DREAD (verb)
  The verb DREAD has 1 sense:

1. be afraid or scared of; be frightened of

  Familiarity information: DREAD used as a verb is very rare.

• DREAD (noun)

Meaning:

Fearful expectation or anticipation

Classified under:

Nouns denoting feelings and emotions

Synonyms:

apprehension; apprehensiveness; dread

Context example:

the student looked around the examination room with apprehension

Hypernyms ("dread" is a kind of...):

fear; fearfulness; fright (an emotion experienced in anticipation of some specific pain or danger (usually accompanied by a desire to flee or fight))

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "dread"):

trepidation (a feeling of alarm or dread)

boding; foreboding; premonition; presentiment (a feeling of evil to come)

suspense (apprehension about what is going to happen)

gloom; gloominess; somberness; sombreness (a feeling of melancholy apprehension)

chill; pall (a sudden numbing dread)

• DREAD (adjective)

Meaning:

Causing fear or dread or terror

Synonyms:

fearful; fearsome; frightening; horrendous; dreadful; dreaded; dread; direful; terrible; dire; awful; horrific

Context examples:

the awful war / 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

Similar:

alarming (causing alarm or fear)

• DREAD (verb)

Meaning:

Be afraid or scared of; be frightened of

Classified under:

Verbs of feeling

Synonyms:

dread; fear

Context examples:

I fear the winters in Moscow / We should not fear the Communists!

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "dread"):

panic (be overcome by a sudden fear)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Somebody ----s somebody
Somebody ----s to INFINITIVE

Sentence example:

Sam cannot dread Sue