different between fearful vs onerous

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

English

Etymology

From Middle English onerous, from Middle French onereux, from Old French onereus, from Latin onerosus (“burdensome”), from onus (“load”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /??n???s/, /???n???s/
• (US) IPA^(key): /??n???s/, /?o?n???s/

Adjective

onerous (comparative more onerous, superlative most onerous)

1. imposing or constituting a physical, mental, or figurative load which can be borne only with effort; burdensome.
   • 1820, Washington Irving, "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow":

     That all this might not be too onerous on the purses of his rustic patrons, who are apt to consider the costs of schooling a grievous burden, and schoolmasters as mere drones, he had various ways of rendering himself both useful and agreeable.

   • 1910, Jack London, "The Golden Poppy" in Revolution and Other Essays:

     [I]t has become an onerous duty, a wearisome and distasteful task.

Synonyms

• (burdensome): demanding, difficult, taxing, wearing

Derived terms

• onerously

Related terms

Translations

Middle English

Alternative forms

• honerous, onerose, onerouse

Etymology

From Middle French onereux, from Old French onereus, from Latin onerosus.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?n??ru?s/, /??n?rus/

Adjective

onerous

1. (Late Middle English) onerous

Descendants

• English: onerous

References

• “oner?us, adj.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2019-1-7.