terrible
part of speech
adjective (terrible); adverb (terribly)
meaning for a pupil
1) Terrible means very bad or unpleasant: a terrible storm, a terrible smell. tree →
2) Terrible means very serious and causing great harm or fear: a terrible accident. tree →
3) Terrible at something means very bad at doing it. tree →
4) Informally, terrible can just mean very great: a terrible hurry. tree →
sense in the lessons
In stories, «terrible» warns the reader about danger or disaster; in fairy tales there are terrible monsters and terrible giants. In everyday life children use it for bad days, bad weather or feeling ill. In writing lessons, teachers encourage stronger or more exact words too: dreadful, awful, horrifying. Phrases: a terrible mistake, feel terrible, terrible at, a terrible fright, terribly sorry.
examples
- There was a terrible storm last night. tree →
- I feel terrible — I think I have the flu. tree →
- That cheese has a terrible smell. tree →
- I'm terrible at whistling. tree →
- The story was about a terrible dragon. tree →
- It was a terrible accident, but nobody was badly hurt. tree →
- I'm terribly sorry I'm late. tree →
- There arose a very terrible storm. tree →
note
No -er/-est forms: use «more terrible», or a stronger word. Adverb «terribly» often just means «very»: «terribly sorry», «terribly kind». Old meaning: causing terror; «Ivan the Terrible» means feared, not bad at things.
In the corpora
- Nothing terrible happened; they were just worn out.
- The future of AI is probably neither all wonderful nor all terrible; it depends on the choices people make.
- Mole — and the terrible grey Badger, who is really rather fond of children.
- And that's the gallant Water Rat, a terrible fighter, walking along o' him!
- "The terrible twos" means the difficult stage of a toddler around age two.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «terrible» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.