Synonyms for frightening
- adjective
Most common
All synonyms
Adjective
1. Terrifying — awful, terrible, very bad
terrifying, scary, horrifying, fearful, terrible, dreadful, shocking, alarming, hair-raising, horrific, frightful, eerie, aerie US, gruesome, grim, ghastly, fearsome, horrible, petrifying, awful, appalling, daunting, horrendous
Other
Definitions
- adj. 1
Awful, terrible, very bad.
Related words
- Word family
- frighteningly frighten
- Is a kind of
- moving unpleasant
Example sentences
- scary Was it scary for you to live in the United States?
- terrifying Ziri listened to one of Rima's terrifying stories.
- fearful “People are very fearful of the virus,” he added.
- horrifying Santiago told Rima about his horrifying discovery.
Popularity over time
| Word | 1850 → 2019 | Trend |
|---|---|---|
| frightening | rising | |
| scary | rising | |
| terrifying | rising | |
| fearful | rising | |
| horrifying | rising |
Use in printed books, per decade from 1850 to 2019.
By length
- 4 letters
- grim1
- 5 letters
- awful2, scary2, eerie2, aerie2
- 7 letters
- fearful2, ghastly2
- 8 letters
- terrible3, horrible3, shocking2, horrific3, dreadful2, alarming3, daunting2, gruesome2, fearsome2
- 9 letters
- appalling3, frightful2
- 10 letters
- terrifying4, horrifying4, horrendous3, petrifying
- 13 letters
- horripilating
The small number after each word is its number of syllables (awful2 = 2 syllables).