different between awesome vs fearful

English

Etymology

From awe +? -some; compare Old English e?eful (“fearful; inspiring awe”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /???s?m/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /??s.?m/
• (cot–caught merger) IPA^(key): /??s.?m/

Adjective

awesome (comparative more awesome or awesomer, superlative most awesome or awesomest)

1. (dated) Causing awe or terror; inspiring wonder or excitement. [from 1590–1600.]

   Synonyms: awe-inspiring; see also Thesaurus:awesome
2. (colloquial) Excellent, exciting, remarkable.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:excellent

Usage notes

The oldest meaning of awesome is of “something which inspires awe”, but the word is now also a common slang expression. It was originally so used in the United States, where it had featured strikingly in the 1970 film Tora! Tora! Tora!, as used by Japan's Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto to describe the "awesome" industrial potential of the United States. Consequently, as the word popularly became an expression for anything superb, in its original meaning it has tended to be replaced by the related word, awe-inspiring.

The comparative and superlative forms awesomer and awesomest are generally regarded as nonstandard.

Antonyms

• aweless

Derived terms

• awesome sauce (slang)
• awesomely
• awesomeness
• awesomenessness (nonce word, rare, nonstandard)
• awesometastic

Related terms

• awe-inspiring
• awful

Translations

Noun

awesome (uncountable)

1. (slang) Short for awesomeness: the quality, state, or essence of being awesome.

   Synonym: (slang) awesome sauce

   Antonyms: (slang) fail, (vulgar) shit, (slang) weaksauce

   • 2011, Gwen Hayes, Let Me Call You Sweetheart, Samhain Publishing, Ltd. (2011), ?ISBN, page 6:

     Plus, her patent leather boots were made of awesome. They made her legs look longer and leaner.

   • 2011, Kevin Seccia, Punching Tom Hanks: Dropkicking Gorillas and Pummeling Zombified Ex-Presidents—A Guide to Beating Up Anything, St. Martin's Press (2011), ?ISBN, page 189:

     Swayze, of course, is the being of pure awesome who has by now conquered all of Heaven.

   • 2013, Carrie Jones, Captivate, Bloomsbury (2010), ?ISBN, page 150:

     “Your grandmother,” he mumbles into my hair as we cuddle on the couch, “is made of awesome.”

Further reading

• awesome (disambiguation) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

English

Alternative forms

• fearefull (obsolete)
• fearfull (obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle English ferful, fervol, equivalent to fear +? -ful.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?f??f?l/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /?f??f?l/
• Rhymes: -???f?l
• Hyphenation: fear?ful

Adjective

fearful (comparative fearfuller or fearfuler or more fearful, superlative fearfullest or fearfulest or most fearful)

1. Frightening.
2. Tending to fear; timid.

   a fearful boy

3. (dated) Terrible; shockingly bad.
4. (now rare) Frightened; filled with terror.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, III.4:

     Those two great champions did attonce pursew / The fearefull damzell with incessant payns […]

Synonyms

• (frightened): frightened, timid, timorous
• See also Thesaurus:afraid and Thesaurus:cowardly

Translations

Adverb

fearful (comparative more fearful, superlative most fearful)

1. (dialect) Extremely; fearfully.

Further reading

• fearful in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• fearful in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

Anagrams

• Lauffer