awful
part of speech
adjective (awful, more awful, most awful); adverb (informal, US: awful nice)
meaning for a pupil
1) Awful means very bad or unpleasant: awful weather, an awful smell. tree →
2) If you feel awful, you feel ill or very unhappy or guilty. tree →
3) (informal) «An awful lot» means a very large amount. tree →
4) In old writing, awful meant «full of awe», very impressive and frightening. tree →
sense in the lessons
In everyday talk and stories it is a strong word for bad experiences. In writing lessons, teachers may ask pupils to use more exact words than «awful» (terrible, disgusting, dreadful, horrid). Phrases: «an awful lot», «feel awful», «look awful», «that's awful».
examples
- The weather was awful, so we stayed inside. tree →
- This medicine tastes awful. tree →
- I feel awful — I think I have a cold. tree →
- I felt awful about breaking her pencil. tree →
- There is an awful lot of homework this week. tree →
- What an awful smell! tree →
- The traffic was awful on the way to school. tree →
- That's awful news; I'm sorry. tree →
note
One l at the end: awful (not «awfull»). Adverb: awfully (very: «awfully kind»). In US speech «awful» can mean «very» («awful big»), but in writing use «awfully» or «very». The old meaning connects to «awe» and «awesome», which now means great — so «awful» and «awesome» have become opposites.
In the corpora
- At bedtime Mum explains he had an awful week at work, and Dad comes up and says, "Sorry, mate.
- What made you tell that awful fib to your wife?»
- Lily's hair got a knot, she cried, and Tom felt awful all afternoon.
- To Sam it wasn't: he was frightened and cried, and Jake felt awful and said sorry properly.
- Marcus felt awful when he found out.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «awful» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.