frightened

1. 1
   adjective

   Filled with fear; in a state of being afraid.

   A frightened crowd pushed toward the exits when the alarm sounded.

   He was too frightened to move as the snake slid past his foot.

   Similarscared, afraid, fearful, terrified, alarmed

   Oppositeunafraid, fearless, calm

   Note

   A participle that has settled into a true adjective and behaves like one. It takes very or very much, and it compares with more frightened and most frightened rather than with an added ending. The object of the fear follows of, as in frightened of the storm, and the word sits comfortably before a noun: a frightened look, a frightened crowd. When by follows instead, the sentence usually belongs to the verb's passive.

2. 2
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of frighten.

   The fireworks frightened every dog in the neighborhood.

   He was frightened by the strange sounds coming from the attic.

   Note

   One spelling does double duty here, serving the simple past (the noise frightened her) and the past participle (it had frightened her). Frighten can also be intransitive, meaning "to become scared," so the past tense sometimes stands without an object. In the passive, the participle overlaps with the adjective. An agent introduced by by, as in frightened by mice, signals the verb, while very or a following of points to the adjective.

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