# dread

Pronunciation: say "DRED" /dɹɛd/

## Verb

1. To be very afraid of something, or to look ahead to something that is coming with great fear or unwillingness.
   - Simple: To feel very worried or afraid about something, especially something that is going to happen.
   - _Most employees dread the annual performance review._
   - _He has been dreading telling his parents that he lost his job._
6. To style someone's hair into dreadlocks.
   - Simple: To make hair into dreadlocks.
   - _Stylists who dread hair often charge by the hour._
   - _Using a crochet hook and a tin of beeswax, she dreaded her son's hair into neat, even locks._
9. To be filled with great fear.
   - Simple: To feel great fear.

## Noun

2. Great fear of some danger or evil that is expected to come.
   - Simple: A strong fear of something bad that you think is going to happen.
   - _A sense of dread settled over the town as the floodwaters kept rising._
   - _For months the workers lived in constant dread of another round of layoffs._
4. Short for dreadlock: a thick, rope-like strand of hair made by tangling or twisting it together. *(slang)* — Clipping of dreadlock.
   - Simple: Short for dreadlock. An informal word, mostly used in the plural.
   - _She tied her dreads back before she went on stage._
   - _He tucked a loose dread behind his ear and kept talking._
5. A person or thing that is greatly feared.
   - Simple: A person or thing that people are very afraid of.
   - _The tax inspector was the dread of every shopkeeper on the street._
   - _Public speaking has always been her chief dread._
7. A member of the Rastafari movement; a Rastafarian.
   - Simple: A Rastafarian, a person who follows the Rastafari faith.
   - _Several dreads from the local Rastafari community spoke at the meeting._
   - _The elder was a dread who had kept the faith for fifty years._
8. Fear mixed with reverence or deep respect; a feeling of awe.
   - Simple: Deep fear mixed with great respect, like the feeling of awe.
   - _The pilgrims entered the cathedral in a kind of holy dread._
   - _Even the generals spoke of the emperor with a dread that was half devotion._

## Adjective

3. Terrible and greatly feared.
   - Simple: Very frightening and greatly feared.
   - _Tuberculosis was a dread disease in the crowded cities of the past._
   - _The old sailors lowered their voices whenever they spoke of the dread reef at the harbor mouth._

## Adjective

10. Inspiring awe, and held in fearful reverence. *(archaic)*
   - Simple: So great or powerful that people feel fear and deep respect.
   - _Petitioners knelt in silence before the dread throne._
   - _The old hymn calls on the dread majesty of heaven._

## Noun

11. Fury, or the terrible quality that makes something feared. *(obsolete)*
   - Simple: Fury, or the quality of being terrible and frightening.
12. A person held in the highest reverence. *(obsolete)*
   - Simple: A person who is honored and respected very deeply.

## Other meanings

- (noun) Short for dreadnought: a big battleship of the early 1900s whose main guns were all large and the same size.

## Origin

**Meanings 1, 6, 9** — Proto-West Germanic *andarādan, which matches Old English and- plus rǣdan (the source of read), gave Old English ondrǣdan ("to fear, dread"). Its shortened form drǣdan ("to fear, dread") became Middle English dreden. Related words include Old Saxon antdrādan and Old High German intrātan ("to fear").
**Meanings 2, 4–5, 7–8, 11–12** — This noun was formed from the verb and appeared in Middle English as drede or dred. It has a cognate in Old Frisian drēd or drēde ("fear, dread").
**Meanings 3, 10** — Middle English dreden ("to fear, dread") had the past participle drede or dredde ("feared, dreaded, honored"), which is the source of this word.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/dread (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).