dreadful

adj

1. Full of something causing dread, whether

   “"...Aunt Em will surely think something dreadful has happened to me, and that will make her put on mourning..."”

2. (excessive)Full of something causing dread, whether

   “Here some... Look dreadful gay in their own sparkling blood.”

   “[I]ndeed I began ſincerely to hate my ſelf for a Dog, a VVretch that had been a Thief, and a Murtherer; […] I vvent about vvith my Heart full of theſe Thoughts, little better than a diſtracted Fellovv; in ſhort, running headlong into the dreadfulleſt Deſpair, and premeditated nothing but hovv to rid my ſelf out of the VVorld; […] nothing lay upon my Mind for ſeveral Days, but to ſhoot my ſelf into the Head vvith my Piſtol.”

   “This time was most dreadful for Lilian. Thrown on her own resources and almost penniless, she maintained herself and paid the rent of a wretched room near the hospital by working as a charwoman, sempstress, anything.”

   “After a dreadful performance in the opening 45 minutes, they upped their game after the break...”

3. (obsolete)Full of something causing dread, whether
4. (obsolete)Full of dread, whether

   “Shame to the slothful and woe to the weak one. Death to the dreadful who turn to flee. Blood to the tearing, the talon’d, the beaked one. Timor Mortis are We.”

5. (obsolete)Full of dread, whether
6. (obsolete)Full of dread, whether

adv

1. (informal)Dreadfully.

   “I'm sorry, Miz Terrigan. I'm dreadful sorry.”

   “You don't look so dreadful poor in the face as you did a while back.”

   “"No," she replied, coolly, "and I shall want my dinner dreadful bad afore I get it, I know. You don't often feel dreadful hungry, do you, sir?”

noun

1. A shocker: a report of a crime written in a provokingly lurid style.
2. A journal or broadsheet printing such reports.
3. A shocking or sensational crime.