fearful
[adjective]
Synonyms:
- scared, afraid, alarmed, frightened, jumpy, nervous, timid, timorous, uneasy
- frightful, awful, dire, dreadful, gruesome, hair-raising, horrendous, horrific, terrible

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Antonyms: fearless, unafraid, reassuring
Contrasted words: audacious, bold, brave, courageous, dauntless, unafraid, valiant, assured, confident, sanguine, sure, collected, composed, cool, imperturbable, nonchalant, unflappable, unperturbed, attractive, charming, delightful, enchanting, pleasant, pleasing
Related Words: agitated, alarmed, discomposed, disquieted, disturbed, perturbed, aflutter, jittery, nervous, uneasy, anxious, concerned, solicitous, worried, alarming, frightening, terrifying, ghastly, grim, grisly, gruesome, lurid, macabre, baleful, malign, sinister, overwhelming, sublime

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English Thesaurus: frightened, scared, afraid, alarmed, fearful, ...

[TahlilGaran] English Synonym Dictionary ▲

fear‧ful /ˈfɪəfəl $ ˈfɪr-/ adjective
[Word Family: noun: fear, fearfulness ≠ fearlessness; adjective: fearful ≠ fearless, fearsome; verb: fear; adverb: fearfully ≠ fearlessly]

1. formal frightened that something bad might happen:
a shy and fearful child
fearful of
People are fearful of rising crime in the area.
fearful that
Officials are fearful that the demonstrations will cause new violence.

2. British English extremely bad Synonym : awful, terrible:
The room was in a fearful mess.

3. [only before noun] written very frightening Synonym : terrifying:
a fearful creature
—fearfulness noun [uncountable]

[TahlilGaran] Dictionary of Contemporary English ▲

fearful
adj.
VERBS appear, be, feel, look, seem | become, grow | remain | leave sb, make sb The experience had left her fearful and uncertain.
ADV. extremely, very | almost | a bit, a little, rather, slightly | understandably
PREP. about understandably fearful about the future
for I felt fearful for my life.
of He was fearful of every shadow.

[TahlilGaran] Collocations Dictionary ▲

frightened feeling worried because you might get hurt or because something bad might happen:
I was too frightened to say anything.
Many animals are frightened of fireworks.
Frightened residents called the police as the gang started throwing bricks.
scared [not before noun] especially spoken frightened. Scared is less formal than frightened and is the usual word to use in everyday English:
I’m scared of dogs.
Old people are too scared to go out of their homes.
afraid [not before noun] frightened. Afraid sounds more formal than frightened or scared:
Children are often afraid of the dark.
I was afraid that I might say the wrong thing.
alarmed frightened and worried that something bad might happen:
She was alarmed at the thought of performing in front of an audience.
Alarmed passengers spotted fuel leaking from the plane.
fearful formal frightened that something bad might happen:
They are fearful of another terrorist attack.
He was fearful that he might make another mistake.
a fearful panic
terrified very frightened:
He looked terrified as the plane took off.
James was absolutely terrified of losing his only child.
He dragged the terrified woman into his car.
petrified very frightened – used especially when you are so frightened that you cannot think or move:
She’s absolutely petrified of spiders.
scared stiff/scared to death informal very frightened:
I had to make a speech, and I was scared stiff.
She was scared to death of her father.
in terror written if you do something in terror, you do it because you are very frightened:
People fled in terror as the building went up in flames.

[TahlilGaran] English Thesaurus ▲