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Vehement in anger or cruelty; ready or eager to kill or injure; of a nature to inspire terror; ferocious. "A fierce whisper." Dickens. "A fierce tyrant." Pope. The fierce foe hung upon our broken rear. Milton. Thou huntest me as a fierce lion. Job. x. 16.

A state of terror excited by the sudden appearance of danger; sudden and violent fear, usually of short duration; a sudden alarm.

Full of that which causes fright; exciting alarm; impressing terror; shocking; as, a frightful chasm, or tempest; a frightful appearance.

Fear; terror. [Obs.]

Thundering; striking terror. Cotgrave.

, Grue"some, a. Etym: [From a word akin to Dan. gru horror, terror + -some; cf. D. gruwzaam, G. grausam. Cf. Grisly.]

Distressing or offensive to the ear; exciting terror or dismay; as, a hideous noise. "Hideous cries." Shak.

A real or fancied bristling of the hair of the head or body, resulting from disease, terror, chilliness, etc.

A painful emotion of fear, dread, and abhorrence; a shuddering with terror and detestation; the feeling inspired by something frightful and shocking. How could this, in the sight of heaven, without horrors of conscience be uttered Milton.

of promotion, are two powerful incentives to action. The greatest obstacles, the greatest terrors that come in their way, are so far from making them quit the work they had begun, that they rather prove incentives to them to go on in it. South.

o young men of the upper classes who aided in suppressing the Jacobins after the Reign of Terror.

a fabric, as in knitting or lace making. Hector, when he sees Andromache overwhelmed with terror, sends her for consolation to the loom and the distaff. Rambler.

n; inflamed by violent or uncontrollable desire, passion, or appetite; as, to be mad with terror, lust, or hatred; mad against political reform. It is the land of graven images, and they are mad upon their idols. Jer. 1. 88. And being exceedingly mad against them, I persecuted them even unto strange cities. Acts xxvi.…

ate treatment of an offender or adversary; clemency. Examples of justice must be made for terror to some; examples of mercy for comfort to others. Bacon.

A bugbear; false terror. [Obs.] Jonhson.

sion on them. Matt. ix. 36. [The use of images] in orations and poetry is to move pity or terror. Felton.

rsons at once, -- a method of execution practiced at Nantes in France during the Reign of Terror, by Jean Baptiste Carrier.

ng was present in person to overlook the magistrates, and overawe these subjects with the terror of his sword. Spenser.

Extreme or sudden and causeless; unreasonable; -- said of fear or fright; as, panic fear, terror, alarm. "A panic fright." Dryden.

s are drawn; a portent; as, eclipses and meteors were anciently deemed prodigies. So many terrors, voices, prodigies, May warn thee, as a sure foregoing sign. Milton.