dreadful

«dreadful» in Mova's school dictionary: Very bad or unpleasant — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 5 sentences of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

adjective

meaning for a pupil

1) Very bad or unpleasant. tree →

2) Causing fear or great shock; terrible. tree →

3) (informal) Used to make something stronger: a dreadful mess. tree →

sense in the lessons

In everyday British talk «dreadful» is a common word for bad weather, food or behaviour; in stories it describes frightening events; phrases: «a dreadful mistake», «I feel dreadful», «dreadful weather», «the dreadful news».

examples

• The weather was dreadful, so sports day was cancelled. tree →
• I made a dreadful mistake on my test. tree →
• There was a dreadful accident on the motorway. tree →
• «What a dreadful thing to say!» gasped Grandma. tree →
• I feel dreadful; I think I have flu. tree →
• The food at the café was dreadful. tree →
• The dreadful storm blew trees down. tree →
• This was a very dreadful disaster. tree →

note

Adverb: dreadfully (often means «very»: «dreadfully sorry»). Spelled with -ful (one l). Similar: awful, terrible, horrible. From dread (great fear).

In the corpora

• Alice mutters "It's really dreadful, the way all the creatures argue.
• The adventures first: explanations take such a dreadful time.»
• As whirlwinds in the South sweeping on, it cometh from the wilderness, from a dreadful land.
• As for their rings, they were high and they were dreadful; and they four had their rings full of eyes round about.
• They are terrible and dreadful; their law and their majesty proceed from themselves.

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «dreadful» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.