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Horrible vs Dread - What's the difference?

horrible | dread |

As nouns the difference between horrible and dread

is that horrible is a thing that causes horror; a terrifying thing, particularly a prospective bad consequence asserted as likely to result from an act while dread is great fear in view of impending evil; fearful apprehension of danger; anticipatory terror.

As adjectives the difference between horrible and dread

is that horrible is causing horror; terrible; shocking while dread is terrible; greatly feared.

As a verb dread is

to fear greatly.

horrible

English

Noun

(en noun)
  • A thing that causes horror; a terrifying thing, particularly a prospective bad consequence asserted as likely to result from an act.
  • * 1851 , Herman Melville, Moby Dick
    • Here's a carcase. I know not all that may be coming, but be it what it will, I'll go to it laughing. Such a waggish leering as lurks in all your horribles !
  • * 1982 , United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, The Genocide Convention: Hearing Before the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate
    • A lot of the possible horribles conjured up by the people objecting to this convention ignore the plain language of this treaty.
  • * 1991 , Alastair Scott, Tracks Across Alaska: A Dog Sled Journey
    • The pot had previously simmered skate wings, cods' heads, whales, pigs' hearts and a long litany of other horribles .
  • * 2000 , John Dean, CNN interview, January 21, 2000:
    • I'm trying to convince him that the criminal behavior that's going on at the White House has to end. And I give him one horrible after the next. I just keep raising them. He sort of swats them away.
  • * 2001 , Neil K. Komesar, Law's Limits: The Rule of Law and the Supply and Demand of Rights
    • Many scholars have demonstrated these horribles and contemplated significant limitations on class actions.
  • A person wearing a comic or grotesque costume in a parade of horribles.

    • Adjective

    (en-adj)
  • Causing horror; terrible; shocking.
  • *
  • *:Such a scandal as the prosecution of a brother for forgery—with a verdict of guilty—is a most truly horrible , deplorable, fatal thing. It takes the respectability out of a family perhaps at a critical moment, when the family is just assuming the robes of respectability:it is a black spot which all the soaps ever advertised could never wash off.
  • *, comment=The New Yorker, March 19
    • , passage=Strangers fainted dead away at the sight of the Laughing Man's horrible face. Acquaintances shunned him.}}
  • *, author=(Ray Bradbury)
    • , passage=Some of us have had plastic surgery on our faces and fingerprints. Right now we have a horrible job; we're waiting for the war to begin and, as quickly, end.}}
  • Tremendously wrong or errant.
  • *{{quote-book, year=1933, title=(My Life and Hard Times), author=(James Thurber)
    • , passage=Her own mother lived the latter years of her life in the horrible suspicion that electricity was dripping invisibly all over the house.}}

    Synonyms

    * See also

    Related terms

    * horrific * horrify * horror * horrendous

    References

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    dread

    English

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To fear greatly.
  • To anticipate with fear.
    • I'm dreading getting the results of the test, as it could decide my whole life.
  • * 1877 , (Anna Sewell), (Black Beauty) Chapter 22[http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Black_Beauty/22]
    • Day by day, hole by hole our bearing reins were shortened, and instead of looking forward with pleasure to having my harness put on as I used to do, I began to dread it.
  • To be in dread, or great fear.
  • * Bible, Deuteronomy i. 29
    • Dread not, neither be afraid of them.

    Derived terms

    * dreadable * dreadworthy

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • Great fear in view of impending evil; fearful apprehension of danger; anticipatory terror.
  • * Tillotson
    • the secret dread of divine displeasure
  • * Shakespeare
    • the dread of something after death
  • * '>citation
  • Reverential or respectful fear; awe.
  • * Bible, Genesis ix 2.
    • The fear of you, and the dread of you, shall be upon every beast of the earth.
  • * Shakespeare
    • His sceptre shows the force of temporal power, / The attribute to awe and majesty, / Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings.
  • Somebody or something dreaded.
  • (obsolete) A person highly revered.
  • * Spenser
    • Una, his dear dread
  • (obsolete) Fury; dreadfulness.
    • (Spenser)
  • A Rastafarian.
  • (chiefly, in the plural) dreadlock

    • Adjective

    (er)
  • Terrible; greatly feared.
  • (archaic) Awe-inspiring; held in fearful awe.
  • *

    • See also

    * dreadlocks * dreadnought

    Anagrams

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