Adjective

(en adjective)

(obsolete): Full of fright; affrighted; frightened.

*

Full of that which causes fright; exciting alarm; impressing terror; shocking; as, a frightful chasm, or tempest; a frightful appearance.

(Used as an intensifier)

We wasted a frightful amount of money on renovations.

Adjective

(en-adj)

Very miserable; sunk in, or accompanied by, deep affliction or distress, as from want, anxiety, or grief; calamitous; woeful; very afflicting.

* {{quote-book, year=1918, author=(w)

, title=Creatures That Once Were Men, and other stories, chapter=4 citation , passage=As for me, I felt wretched and helpless, in the darkness, surrounded with angry waves, whose noise deafened me.}}

Worthless; paltry; very poor or mean; miserable.

* {{quote-book, year=1864, author=(Fyodor Dostoyevsky), title=Notes from Underground, chapter=1

citation , passage=My room is a wretched , horrid one in the outskirts of the town.}}

*, chapter=17

, title= The Mirror and the Lamp , passage=This time was most dreadful for Lilian. Thrown on her own resources and almost penniless, she maintained herself and paid the rent of a wretched room near the hospital by working as a charwoman, sempstress, anything.}}

* , Episode 16

All those wretched quarrels, in his humble opinion, stirring up bad blood, from some bump of combativeness or gland of some kind, erroneously supposed to be about a punctilio of honour and a flag,.

* {{quote-news, year=2011, date=April 11, author=Phil McNulty, work=BBC Sport

, title= Liverpool 3-0 Man City , passage=Mario Balotelli replaced Tevez but his contribution was so negligible that he suffered the indignity of being substituted himself as time ran out, a development that encapsulated a wretched 90 minutes for City and boss Roberto Mancini. }}

(obsolete) Hatefully contemptible; despicable; wicked.