Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Dreadfully |
DreadfullyAdverb1. Of a dreadful kind; "there was a dreadfully bloody accident on the road this morning". 2. In a dreadful manner; "as he looks at the mess he has left behind he must wonder how the Brits so often managed to succeed in the kind of situation where he has so dismally failed". Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "dreadfully" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1350. (references) |
Synonyms: DreadfullySynonyms: awfully (adv), dismally (adv), horribly (adv). (additional references) |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Greatness | Painfully, sadly, grossly, sorely, bitterly, piteously, grievously, miserably, cruelly, woefully, lamentably, shockingly, frightfully, dreadfully, fearfully, terribly, horribly. |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
Crosswords: Dreadfully |
| English words defined with "dreadfully": airless, awfully ♦ boring ♦ close ♦ deadening, dull ♦ ho-hum, horribly, Horrisonous ♦ irksome ♦ slow, stuffy ♦ tedious, tiresome ♦ unaired ♦ wearisome. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "dreadfully": Adjective or Adverb ♦ SOCIETY SLANG, story. (references) |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | Imagine if it ever grows up, it'll be a dreadfully ugly child, but it makes a rather handsome piglet, don't you think? (Peter Pan and the Pirates; writing credit: Gregory Bernstein; Sara Bernstein) | |
Lyrics | Something is dreadfully wrong, for I feel ("El Paso"; performing artist: Marty Robbins) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Author | Quotation |
James Russell Lowell | Whatever you may be sure of, be sure of this -- that you are dreadfully like other people. |
Louisa May Alcott | People don't have fortunes left them in that style nowadays; men have to work and women to marry for money. It's a dreadfully unjust world. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | |
| Title | Author | Quote |
Emma | Austen, Jane | It rained dreadfully hard for half an hour while we were at breakfast. |
Alice in Wonderland | Carroll, Lewis | Alice felt dreadfully puzzled. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Lexicography | Devil's Dictionary | STORY, n. A narrative, commonly untrue. The truth of the stories here following has, however, not been successfully impeached. One evening Mr. Rudolph Block, of New York, found himself seated at dinner alongside Mr. Percival Pollard, the distinguished critic. "Mr. Pollard," said he, "my book, The Biography of a Dead Cow, is published anonymously, but you can hardly be ignorant of its authorship. Yet in reviewing it you speak of it as the work of the Idiot of the Century. Do you think that fair criticism?" "I am very sorry, sir," replied the critic, amiably, "but it did not occur to me that you really might not wish the public to know who wrote it." Mr. W.C. Morrow, who used to live in San Jose, California, was addicted to writing ghost stories which made the reader feel as if a stream of lizards, fresh from the ice, were streaking it up his back and hiding in his hair. San Jose was at that time believed to be haunted by the visible spirit of a noted bandit named Vasquez, who had been hanged there. The town was not very well lighted, and it is putting it mildly to say that San Jose was reluctant to be out o' nights. One particularly dark night two gentlemen were abroad in the loneliest spot within the city limits, talking loudly to keep up their courage, when they came upon Mr. J.J. Owen, a well-known journalist. "Why, Owen," said one, "what brings you here on such a night as this? You told me that this is one of Vasquez' favorite haunts! And you are a believer. Aren't you afraid to be out?" "My dear fellow," the journalist replied with a drear autumnal cadence in his speech, like the moan of a leaf-laden wind, "I am afraid to be in. I have one of Will Morrow's stories in my pocket and I don't dare to go where there is light enough to read it." Rear-Admiral Schley and Representative Charles F. Joy were standing near the Peace Monument, in Washington, discussing the question, Is success a failure? Mr. Joy suddenly broke off in the middle of an eloquent sentence, exclaiming: "Hello! I've heard that band before. Santlemann's, I think." "I don't hear any band," said Schley. "Come to think, I don't either," said Joy; "but I see General Miles coming down the avenue, and that pageant always affects me in the same way as a brass band. One has to scrutinize one's impressions pretty closely, or one will mistake their origin." While the Admiral was digesting this hasty meal of philosophy General Miles passed in review, a spectacle of impressive dignity. When the tail of the seeming procession had passed and the two observers had recovered from the transient blindness caused by its effulgence -- "He seems to be enjoying himself," said the Admiral. "There is nothing," assented Joy, thoughtfully, "that he enjoys one-half so well." The illustrious statesman, Champ Clark, once lived about a mile from the village of Jebigue, in Missouri. One day he rode into town on a favorite mule, and, hitching the beast on the sunny side of a street, in front of a saloon, he went inside in his character of teetotaler, to apprise the barkeeper that wine is a mocker. It was a dreadfully hot day. Pretty soon a neighbor came in and seeing Clark, said: "Champ, it is not right to leave that mule out there in the sun. He'll roast, sure! -- he was smoking as I passed him." "O, he's all right," said Clark, lightly; "he's an inveterate smoker." The neighbor took a lemonade, but shook his head and repeated that it was not right. He was a conspirator. There had been a fire the night before: a stable just around the corner had burned and a number of horses had put on their immortality, among them a young colt, which was roasted to a rich nut-brown. Some of the boys had turned Mr. Clark's mule loose and substituted the mortal part of the colt. Presently another man entered the saloon. "For mercy's sake!" he said, taking it with sugar, "do remove that mule, barkeeper: it smells." "Yes," interposed Clark, "that animal has the best nose in Missouri. But if he doesn't mind, you shouldn't." In the course of human events Mr. Clark went out, and there, apparently, lay the incinerated and shrunken remains of his charger. The boys idd not have any fun out of Mr. Clarke, who looked at the body and, with the non-committal expression to which he owes so much of his political preferment, went away. But walking home late that night he saw his mule standing silent and solemn by the wayside in the misty moonlight. Mentioning the name of Helen Blazes with uncommon emphasis, Mr. Clark took the back track as hard as ever he could hook it, and passed the night in town. General H.H. Wotherspoon, president of the Army War College, has a pet rib-nosed baboon, an animal of uncommon intelligence but imperfectly beautiful. Returning to his apartment one evening, the General was surprised and pained to find Adam (for so the creature is named, the general being a Darwinian) sitting up for him and wearing his master's best uniform coat, epaulettes and all. "You confounded remote ancestor!" thundered the great strategist, "what do you mean by being out of bed after naps? -- and with my coat on!" Adam rose and with a reproachful look got down on all fours in the manner of his kind and, scuffling across the room to a table, returned with a visiting-card: General Barry had called and, judging by an empty champagne bottle and several cigar-stumps, had been hospitably entertained while waiting. The general apologized to his faithful progenitor and retired. The next day he met General Barry, who said: "Spoon, old man, when leaving you last evening I forgot to ask you about those excellent cigars. Where did you get them?" General Wotherspoon did not deign to reply, but walked away. "Pardon me, please," said Barry, moving after him; "I was joking of course. Why, I knew it was not you before I had been in the room fifteen minutes." |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| "Dreadfully" is generally used as an adverb (general) -- approximately 99.48% of the time. "Dreadfully" is used about 192 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Adverb (general) | 99.48% | 191 | 22,216 |
| Noun (proper) | 0.52% | 1 | 339,140 |
| Total | 100.00% | 192 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expression using "dreadfully": dreadfully badly. Additional references. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. |
| Language | Translations for "dreadfully"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Chinese | 令人恐惧地. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Finnish | hirmuisen (frightfully). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
French | épouvantablement. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
German | schreckliche (appallingly, frightfully, horribly, terribly, tremendousness), schrecklich (abominably, abysmal, appalling, awful, awfully, dire, direly, dreadful, fearful, fearfully, formidable, frantic, frightful, frightfully, grim, gruesome, horrendous, horrible, horrid, horridly, horrific, horrifying, indescribable, indescribably, lurid, luridly, monstrously, painfully, shockingly, terrible, terribly, terrificly, terrifying, tremendous, tremenduously). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Hungarian | szörnyen (atrociously, awful, awfully, fearfully, fiendishly, frightfully, hugely, in the extreme, something, terribly), irtózatosan (awful, awfully, fiendishly, monstrously), ijesztően (atrociously, dauntingly, startlingly), félelmetesen (tremendously), borzasztóan (awfully, horrendously, horribly, shocking, shockingly, terribly, terrifyingly, tremendously). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Manx | ass myghin (absolutely). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Pig Latin | eadfullydray respingãtor (abhorrent, awful, awfully, disagreeable, dreadful, forbidding, foul, fulsome, hideous, infamous, obnoxious, obscene, odious, odiousness, offensive, pestilent, rebarbative, repellent, repulsive, repulsively, scurvy, unprepossessing, verminous), înfiorãtor (awful, awfully, creepy, dread, dreadful, foully, gruesome, terrible). (various references) užasno (appallingly, awfully, frightfully, horribly, terribly), strašno (awfully). (various references) malísimamente (very badly). (various references) förskräckligt (frightfully, horribly). (various references) อย่างมาก (arrant, far, greatly, lots, majorly, mightily, much, such). (various references) огидно (abhorrently, hideously, nauseatingly, obnoxiously, odiously, offensively), надзвичайно (almighty, amain, anxiously, as anything, awfully, deadly, densely, eminently, enormously, exceedingly, extremely, grossly, highly, hugely, in great measure, in the extreme, jolly, mighty, most, passing, regular, remarkably, ripping, sevenfold, severely, to the utmost, very much, woundily), жахливо (almighty, appallingly, awfully, beastly, bitter, devilish, dogged, fearfully, ferociously, frightfully, grievously, horribly, lamentably, sadly, woefully). (various references) vô cùng (ad infinitum, almighty, consumedly, day, deeply, extremely, frightfuly, half, halves, most, parlous, passing, plaguy, precious, preciously, rank, termless, thundering, utmost, uttermost), rất đỗi (extremely, hugely, plaguy), quá chừng (blooming, consummate, rank, thumping, undue, unduly, unreasonable), kinh sợ, khiếp sợ (horror-stricken, horror-struck, windy). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Language | Period | Translations |
| Latin | 500 BCE-Modern | formidilose, immaniter. (various references) |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
Misspellings | |
"Dreadfully" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: dreadfull, dreadfuls. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "dreadfully" (pronounced dre"dfulē) |
| 4 | -f u l ē | anencephaly, artfully, blissfully, carefully, cheerfully, delightfully, dutifully, faithfully, fitfully, forcefully, frightfully, gainfully, gleefully, gracefully, gratefully, helpfully, hopefully, joyfully, lawfully, manfully, masterfully, meaningfully, mercifully, painfully, peacefully, pitifully, playfully, purposefully, regretfully, respectfully, rightfully, ruefully, skillfully, successfully, tactfully, tastefully, tearfully, thankfully, thoughtfully, truthfully, unlawfully, unsuccessfully, usefully, wilfully, willfully, wishfully, wistfully, woefully, wonderfully, wrongfully. |
| 3 | -u l ē | abnormally, abysmally, accidentally, actually, additionally, agriculturally, anecdotally, angrily, annually, anomaly, arbitrarily, architecturally, artificially, beneficially, bilaterally, bodily, botanically, broccoli, brutally, busily, casually, centrally, cerebrally, chronically, Cicely, circumstantially, civilly, clinically, clumsily, coincidentally, comically, commercially, conceptually, conditionally, confidentially, congressionally, conspiratorially, constitutionally, continentally, continually, contractually, contradictorily, conventionally, cordially, crazily, criminally, critically, culturally, customarily, cynically, developmentally, diagonally, diametrically, digitally, dismally, diurnally, dorsally, easily, editorially, educationally, eerily, electrically, electronically, emotionally, empirically, environmentally, equally, essentially, eternally, ethically, eventually, exceptionally, experimentally, exponentially, externally, extraordinarily, facsimile, factually, family, fanatically, fatally, federally, finally, financially, fiscally, florally, formally, fractionally, frantically, frugally, functionally, fundamentally, generally, generationally, geographically, giggly, globally, gloomily, governmentally, gradually, gravelly, gravitationally, greedily, habitually, handily, happily, hastily, haughtily, heartily, heavily, hermetically, historically, homily, horizontally, hungrily, icily, illegally, impartially, incidentally, incrementally, individually, industrially, informally, initially, institutionally, intellectually, intentionally, internally, internationally, intrinsically, involuntarily, irrationally, jauntily, journalistically, judicially, lazily, legally, liberally, literally, locally, loyally, luckily, magically, magnetically, majestically, manually, marginally, materially, mathematically, medicinally, mentally, merrily, methodically, metrically, mightily, militarily, mineralogically, minimally, momentarily, monetarily, monopoly, monumentally, morally, mortally, multifamily, multilaterally, municipally, mutually, nasally, nationally, nattily, naturally, necessarily, noisily, nominally, normally, novelly, nutritionally, occasionally, officially, oligopoly, operationally, optimistically, orally, orchestrally, ordinarily, originally, parenthetically, partially, pathetically, perennially, periodically, peripherally, perpetually, personally, phenomenally, philosophically, physically, politically, potentially, pragmatically, preferentially, preliminarily, presidentially, primarily, procedurally, professionally, proportionally, provincially, provisionally, quintessentially, racially, radially, rationally, readily, regally, regionally, ritualistically, romantically, royally, sardonically, satisfactorily, scantily, scientifically, seasonally, secondarily, semiannually, sequentially, serenely, severally, sexually, skeptically, sleepily, sloppily, socially, specially, speedily, spiritually, statistically, statutorily, steadily, steamily, structurally, subfamily, subliminally, substantially, subtly, summarily, supremely, surgically, symbolically, sympathetically, tactically, tangentially, technically, technologically, temperamentally, temporally, temporarily, terminally, territorially, testily, theatrically, theoretically, therapeutically, totally, traditionally, Tripoli, uncannily, unconditionally, unconstitutionally, uncritically, uneasily, unequivocally, unhappily, unilaterally, unintentionally, universally, unnaturally, unnecessarily, unofficially, unusually, usually, virtually, viscerally, visually, vitally, vocally, voluntarily, warily, wearily, wiggly, wittily, wobbly. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "a-d-d-e-f-l-l-r-u-y" | |
-2 letters: alderfly, dreadful, feudally. | |
-3 letters: alluded, allured, dareful, defraud, dullard, fadedly, feudary, fullery. | |
-4 letters: allude, allure, aludel, aulder, deadly, deafly, dearly, defray, drayed, dually, dulled, duller, earful, faller, farded, fardel, ferula, feudal, flared, flayed, flayer, fleury, frayed, fuddle, fulled, fuller, furled, ladder, ladled, ladler, larded, lauded, lauder, laurel, raddle, rallye, really, refall, ruddle, rudely. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
Hexadecimal (or equivalents, 770AD-1900s) (references)44 72 65 61 64 66 75 6C 6C 79 |
| Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519; backwards) (references)
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| American Sign Language (origins from 1620-1817 in Italy and, especially, France) (references)
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| Semaphore (1791, in France) (references)
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| Braille (1829, in France) (references)
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Morse Code (1836) (references)-.. .-. . .- -.. ..-. ..- .-.. .-.. -.--. |
| Dancing Men (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1903) (references)
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Binary Code (1918-1938, probably earlier) (references)01000100 01110010 01100101 01100001 01100100 01100110 01110101 01101100 01101100 01111001 |
HTML Code (1990) (references)D r e a d f u l l y |
ISO 10646 (1991-1993) (references)0044 0072 0065 0061 0064 0066 0075 006C 006C 0079 |
| British Sign Language (Fingerspelling, BSL; 1992, British Deaf Association Dictionary of British Sign Language) (references)
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Encryption (beginner's substitution cypher): (references)38847167707287787891 |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Modern | 5. Quotations: Familiar 6. Quotations: Fiction 7. Quotations: Non-fiction 8. Usage Frequency | 9. Expressions 10. Translations: Modern 11. Translations: Ancient 12. Derivations | 13. Rhymes 14. Anagrams 15. Orthography 16. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
