fear
 fear (fîr)n.
1.
a. A feeling of agitation and anxiety caused by the presence or imminence of danger.
b. A state or condition marked by this feeling:
living in fear.
2. A feeling of disquiet or apprehension:
a fear of looking foolish.
3. Extreme reverence or awe, as toward a supreme power.
4. A reason for dread or apprehension:
Being alone is my greatest fear.v. feared, fear·ing, fearsv. tr.
1. To be afraid or frightened of.
2. To be uneasy or apprehensive about:
feared the test results.
3. To be in awe of; revere.
4. To consider probable; expect:
I fear you are wrong. I fear I have bad news for you.
5. Archaic. To feel fear within (oneself).v. intr.
1. To be afraid.
2. To be uneasy or apprehensive. [Middle English fer, from Old English fǣr, danger, sudden calamity. See per-3 in Indo-European Roots.] fearʹer n.
Synonyms: fear, fright, dread, terror, horror, panic, alarm, dismay, consternation, trepidation
These nouns denote the agitation and anxiety caused by the presence or imminence of danger. Fear is the most general term: “Fear is the parent of cruelty” (J.A. Froude). Fright is sudden, usually momentary, great fear: In my fright, I forgot to lock the door. Dread is strong fear, especially of what one is powerless to avoid: His dread of strangers kept him from socializing. Terror is intense, overpowering fear: “And now at the dead hour of the night, amid the dreadful silence of that old house, so strange a noise as this excited me to uncontrollable terror” (Edgar Allan Poe). Horror is a combination of fear and aversion or repugnance: Murder arouses widespread horror. Panic is sudden frantic fear, often groundless: The fire caused a panic among the horses. Alarm is fright aroused by the first realization of danger: I watched with alarm as the sky darkened. Dismay robs one of courage or the power to act effectively: The rumor of war caused universal dismay. Consternation is often paralyzing, characterized by confusion and helplessness: Consternation gripped the city as the invaders approached. Trepidation is dread characteristically marked by trembling or hesitancy: “They were... full of trepidation about things that were never likely to happen” (John Morley).
Word History: Old English fǣr, the ancestor of our word fear, meant “calamity, disaster,” but not the emotion engendered by such an event. This is in line with the meaning of the prehistoric Common Germanic word *fēraz, “danger,” which is the source of words with similar senses in other Germanic languages, such as Old Saxon and Old High German fār, “ambush, danger,” and Old Icelandic fār, “treachery, damage.” Scholars have determined the form and meaning of Germanic *fēraz by working backward from the forms and the meanings of its descendants. The most important cause of the change of meaning in the word fear was probably the existence in Old English of the related verb fǣran, which meant “to terrify, take by surprise.” Fear is first recorded in Middle English with the sense “emotion of fear” in a work composed around 1290.
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