awful
- 1Extremely bad or unpleasant in quality or character.
The hotel room was in an awful state when the guests arrived.
Critics gave the film awful reviews after its opening weekend.
Similarterrible, dreadful, horrible, atrocious, appalling
Oppositewonderful, excellent, great, marvelous
Note
The everyday meaning is the end of a long slide. Awful began as awe plus -ful, and "very bad" is a later pejorative shift away from the "awe-inspiring" meaning. What once filled a person with reverence now describes smelly socks and films bad enough to walk out of. It compares both ways: awfuller and awfullest sit beside more awful and most awful.
- 2Exceedingly great in amount or degree, often used simply to add emphasis.
They spent an awful amount of money on the renovation.
She shows an awful lot of patience with the younger children.
Similarhuge, tremendous, enormous, considerable
Note
Here the badness has drained out completely, and the word simply measures. Its home is the quantity phrase: an awful lot, an awful amount. Nothing unpleasant need be meant, since learning an awful amount in a day is good news. It does the same job before nouns that the "very" adverb does before adjectives, so read it as size or degree, not judgment.
- 3Very; extremely. Used to intensify an adjective or adverb that follows.
That was awful nice of you to drive all this way.
He drives awful fast on that stretch of highway.
Similarvery, really, extremely, mighty
Note
The pure intensifier of North American casual speech: awful big, awful nice, awful fast. It carries no badness at all and does not compare. A related idiom puts it after the verb, as in blubbering away "something awful." Kipling has a speaker say "awful bad" in 1889. Outside relaxed talk, very or awfully is the safer choice.
- 4Very; dreadfully; to a degree that feels intense or troubling.
The kids were awful upset when the trip got canceled.
We were awful worried until your call finally came through.
Similarterribly, dreadfully, really, real
Note
A plain adverb without the -ly, and it attaches to verbs as well as adjectives. In The Sydney Sportsman of 1933, a dog that "ran awful" ran badly, which keeps the old negative meaning. It does not compare, so there is no "more awful" form of the adverb. In careful writing, awfully or terribly does the same work without the colloquial flavor.
- 5Causing fear or horror; appalling and terrible to witness.
The battlefield was an awful sight that haunted the survivors for years.
At our old pastimes in the hall We gambol’d, making vain pretence Of gladness, with an awful sense Of one mute Shadow watching all.
1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], In MemoriamSimilardreadful, terrible, horrifying, appalling
Note
Dread is the point, not poor quality. When Tennyson writes in In Memoriam (1850) of "an awful sense / Of one mute Shadow watching all," he means a sense of something fearful. Le Fanu in 1839 sets it beside "indescribably odd" to describe an uncanny stillness. In older prose, read it as "terrifying." In modern writing it slips easily toward the "very bad" reading, so the surrounding words have to carry the fear.
- 6Awe-inspiring; filling the beholder with profound reverence, respect, or wonder.
The ancient temple possessed an awful grandeur that humbled every visitor.
As I am seen could I but gaze on Thee / Awful in majesty and royal might
1889, Harriet McEwen Kimball, PoemsNote
The meaning that sits closest to awe itself is now rare and belongs to devotional and poetic language. Florio's Montaigne (1603) speaks of "awful reverence" toward God, and Byron's Don Juan (1819) says "sleep is awful." Because the word has slid toward "bad," a modern writer who wants this sense back may spell it awe-ful, as William Irwin Thompson does in 1981.
- 7Filled with awe or reverence; struck by a profound sense of wonder.
The congregation sat awful and hushed as the great organ swelled.
He stood awful before the vast night sky, sensing his own smallness.
Note
The awe here belongs to the person who feels it, not to the thing that inspires it. Thackeray's "awful reverence" for Mr. Pendennis is a woman's own worshipful feeling. He plays it for comedy, picturing her as a cardinal kneeling before the Pope. The same phrase in the "awe-inspiring" meaning describes reverence that something commands. Ask who is doing the feeling.
- 8Stricken with terror; overcome by intense fear.
Note
A dead sense that mirrors the reverent one: the person, not the cause, is awful, but the feeling is terror rather than awe. It should not be confused with the "causing fear" meaning, where the sight or silence is awful. Here the onlooker is awful because they are frightened. As an obsolete use, it belongs to reading older texts, not to modern writing.
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Practice
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Origin
From Middle English agheful, equivalent to "awe" plus "-ful" (compare Old English egeful, "terrifying; awful"). The "very bad" meaning is a negative shift from the original sense of "awe-inspiring."