| 释义 |
frightful, a.|ˈfraɪtfʊl|
[f. fright n. + -ful.]
†1. subjectively. Full of terror; timid; alarmed.
c1250Gen. & Ex. 3459 ðis friȝ[t]ful [folc] ðus a-biden, Quiles ðis daiȝes for[ð] ben gliden. 1612Drayton Poly-olb. xiii. 215 The wild and frightfull Heards..Feed fairely on the Launds. 1677Gilpin Demonol. (1867) 168 The heart is apt to be startled with threatenings..especially those that are of a more tender and frightful spirit. 1765Foote Commissary ii. Wks. 1799 II. 24 These Bourgois are so frightful. 1802Mrs. J. West Infidel Father III. 332, I am so frightful at being in a murderer's house.
Comb.1718Rowe tr. Lucan 245 Ghastly, and frightful-pale her Face is seen.
2. objectively.
a. Tending to cause fright; alarming. Const. to. ? Obs.
1607Tourneur Rev. Trag. ii. ii. Wks. 1878 II. 64 It fell so without fright-full word. 1690J. Mackenzie Siege London-Derry 31/1 It was then a little more frightful to our people than afterwards. 1725De Foe Voy. round World (1840) 349 Any..ravenous creature..which..were frightful to the deer. 1812Shelley Addr. Irish People 8 Is danger frightful to an Irishman who speaks for his own liberty?
b. Horrible to contemplate, shocking, dreadful, revolting. Often hyperbolically applied to bad or annoying things; cf. awful, fearful, terrible, etc.
‘A cant word among women for anything unpleasing’ (J.).
1700S. L. tr. Fryke's Voy. E. Ind. 295 Sea-Devils or Sand-Creepers are 5 or 6 yards long, with a frightful Head. 1733Pope Ep. to Cobham 250 One would not, sure, be frightful when one's dead. 1752Hume Ess. & Treat. (1777) I. 199, I need not recount the frightful effects of jealousy. 1756Nugent Gr. Tour, Germany II. 301 A high tower, from whence he sounds a frightful horn. 1827Macaulay Macchiav. Ess. (1850) 33 The annals of France and England present us only with a frightful spectacle of poverty, barbarity and ignorance. 1879Froude Cæsar xii. 162 The Clodius business had been a frightful scandal.
†3. quasi-n. (pl.) = frightful adjuncts or accessories.
1727De Foe Secrets Invis. World (1735) xiii. 329 If he [the Devil] will come in all his Formalities and Frightfuls, he would not be capable of half so many Cozenings and Cheatings as he now puts upon us. |