frightened
part of speech
adjective (frightened, more frightened, most frightened); verb form (past of frighten)
meaning for a pupil
1) Frightened means afraid or scared. tree →
2) Frightened is also the past form of «frighten», which means to make someone afraid. tree →
sense in the lessons
In feelings and everyday life, everyone feels frightened sometimes — of the dark, of thunder, of dogs, of new places; it helps to talk to a trusted adult. In safety, feeling frightened can be a warning sign that something is wrong, and you should get away and tell someone. In nature, frightened animals may run or bite, so leave them alone. In stories a frightened character often finds courage.
examples
- I was frightened of the dark when I was little. tree →
- The loud thunder frightened the dog. tree →
- Don't be frightened; it's only the wind. tree →
- The frightened kitten hid under the bed. tree →
- She felt frightened when she got lost. tree →
- A frightened animal might bite. tree →
- He was frightened to tell anyone what had happened. tree →
- Lasse was frightened and began to cry. tree →
note
Say «frightened of» something (frightened of spiders) or «frightened to» do something. Trap: «frightened» (how you feel) vs «frightening» (what makes you feel it): «The film was frightening; I was frightened.» Similar: scared, afraid, terrified (very frightened).
In the corpora
- If a grown-up's anger ever makes you frightened for your safety, tell another trusted adult.
- Videos of tickled pet lorises raising their arms are not cute: the loris is frightened and getting ready to bite.
- It usually means a happy cat, but cats also purr when they are hurt or frightened.
- The frightened old horse rears and backs, and drags the cart into the deep ditch: crash!
- I've been so frightened, you can't think!»
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «frightened» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.