adj. 1
Terrible; greatly feared; dreaded.
1980, Donald Fagen; Walter Becker (lyrics and music), "Glamour Profession" in Gaucho, track 3: "Jack with his radar / Stalking the dread moray eel"
n. 1
Great fear in view of impending evil; fearful apprehension of danger; anticipatory terror.
My visit to the doctor is filling me with dread.
v. 1
To fear greatly.

Related words

Word family: dreadable dreadworthy dreadful dreadlocks

Forms

Plural: dreads → apprehensions, horrors, anxieties, terrors…
Past participle: dreaded
e.g. dreaded → feared, apprehended…

Choose the right word

Dread, Anxiety, Apprehension, Fear, Foreboding or Terror?

Anxiety refers to some future event, always suggesting hopeful possibility, and thus differing from apprehension, fear, dread, foreboding, terror, all of which may be quite despairing. Foreboding, dread, etc., commonly incapacitate for all helpful thought or endeavor.

J. C. Fernald, English Synonyms and Antonyms (1914)

Example sentences

terrible Terrible shooting broke out the night before last.
awful I think it's awful, that they're spreading rumors.
dreadful Something dreadful has happened to Miss Davidson.
fearful “People are very fearful of the virus,” he added.
feared Even the Romans feared to cross the Sahara Desert.

Popularity over time

Word	1850 → 2019	Trend
dread		rising
terrible		rising
awful		rising
dreadful		rising
fearful		rising
feared		rising

Use in printed books, per decade from 1850 to 2019.

By length

2 letters: ug
3 letters: awe¹
4 letters: fear¹, dire¹, grim¹, fere, feer
5 letters: awful², alarm²
6 letters: horror², terror², feared¹, horrid², dismay², fright¹, grisly²
7 letters: anxiety⁴, fearful², hideous³, ghastly², direful
8 letters: terrible³, horrible³, horrific³, dreadful², alarming³, gruesome², fearsome², affright
9 letters: appalling³, apprehend³, frightful², dreadlock
10 letters: terrifying⁴, horrifying⁴, horrendous³
11 letters: frightening³, trepidation⁴
12 letters: apprehension⁴
13 letters: consternation⁴

The small number after each word is its number of syllables (awful² = 2 syllables).