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an; vile; despicable. Milton. The arguments of tyranny are ascontemptible as its force is dreadful. Burke.

l together; to summon to meet; to assemble by summons. There remained no resource but the dreadful one of convoking a parliament. palfrey.

; humidity; fog; fogginess; vapor. Night . . . with black air Accompanied, with damps and dreadful gloom. Milton.

Secret; lonely; solitary; dreadful. [Obs.] Shak. -- Dearn"ly, adv. [Obs.] Chaucer.

Anything so dreadful as to be like death. It was death to them to think of entertaining such doctrines. Atterbury. And urged him, so that his soul was vexed unto death. Judg. xvi. 16.

ffer; to decline a contest; he declined any participation with them. Could I Decline this dreadful hour Massinger.

title; to frustrate, as hope; to deprive, as of an estate. He finds himself naturally to dread a superior Being that can defeat all his designs, and disappoint all his hopes. Tillotson. The escheators . . . defeated the right heir of his succession. Hallam. In one instance he defeated his own purpose. A. W. Ward.…

s supposed to command the spirits of the lower world. See Gorgon. Orcus and Ades, and the dreaded name Of Demogorgon. Milton.

Evil in great degree; dreadful; dismal; horrible; terrible; lamentable. Dire was the tossing, deep the groans. Milton. Gorgons and hydras and chimeras dire. Milton.

Dire; dreadful; terrible; calamitous; woeful; as, a direful fiend; a direful day. -- Dire"ful*ly, adv. -- Dire"ful*ness, n.

Suspicion; fear; apprehension; dread. [Obs.] I stand in doubt of you. Gal. iv. 20. Nor slack her threatful hand for danger's doubt. Spenser.

Dreaded. [Obs.] Chaucer.

of Dread. [Obs.] Chaucer.

Serving to inspire fear, esp. a dread of seeing ghosts; wild; weird; as, eerie stories. She whose elfin prancer springs By night to eery warblings. Tennyson.

evil, or the apprehension of impending danger; apprehension; anxiety; solicitude; alarm; dread.

Inspiring fear or awe; exciting apprehension or terror; terrible; frightful; dreadful. This glorious and fearful name, The Lord thy God. Deut. xxviii. 58. Death is a fearful thing. Shak. In dreams they fearful precipices tread. Dryden.

A stout woolen cloth of great thickness; dreadnaught; also, a warm garment.

y, inheriting its strange web of belief and unbelief, of epicurean levity and fetichistic dread. G. Eliot.

Doom or sentence decreed in advance. "A dread foredoom ringing in the ears of the guilty adult." Southey.

Exciting fear or apprehension; impressing dread; adapted to excite fear and deter from approach, encounter, or undertaking; alarming. They seemed to fear the formodable sight. Dryden. I swell my preface into a volume, and make it formidable, when you see so many pages behind. Drydn.