terrifying
part of speech
adjective (terrifying, more terrifying, most terrifying); verb form (present participle of terrify)
meaning for a pupil
1) Terrifying means making you feel extremely frightened. tree →
2) (informal) Terrifying can also mean very worrying or amazing in a scary way, as in «a terrifying amount of homework». tree →
sense in the lessons
In stories it builds suspense and fear: storms, monsters, cliff edges; in everyday talk people exaggerate («the test was terrifying»); it is stronger than «scary» or «frightening».
examples
- The roller coaster was terrifying! tree →
- A terrifying roar came from the cave. tree →
- Being lost in the crowd was terrifying for the little boy. tree →
- The storm made a terrifying noise. tree →
- It's terrifying how fast the summer goes. tree →
- The film had one terrifying scene with a shark. tree →
- Standing on the high diving board was terrifying. tree →
note
Different from «terrified»: something is terrifying (it causes fear); a person is terrified (they feel fear). «Terrific» is a false friend: it usually means very good!
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «terrifying» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.