terror — English Dictionary

Noun

1. Intense dread, fright, or fear.

   Usage

   • Countable
   • Uncountable

   Examples

   The terrors with which I was seized […] were extreme.

   More examples (2)

   "How thinkest thou that I rule this people? I have but a regiment of guards to do my bidding, therefore it is not by force. It is by terror. My empire is of the imagination."

   Fear of their cargo bred a savage cruelty into the crew. One captain, to strike terror into the rest, killed a slave and dividing heart, liver and entrails into 300 pieces made each of the slaves eat one, threatening those who refused with the same torture. Such incidents were not rare.

2. The action or quality of causing dread; terribleness, especially such qualities in narrative fiction.

   Usage

   • Uncountable

3. Something or someone that causes such fear.

   Usage

   • Countable

   Examples

   More examples (1)

   The Begums' ministers, on the contrary, to extort from them the disclosure of the place which concealed the treasures, were, […] after being fettered and imprisoned, led out on to a scaffold, and this array of terrours proving unavailing, the meek tempered Middleton, as a dernier resort, menaced them with a confinement in the fortress of Chunargar. Thus, my lords, was a British garrison made the climax of cruelties!

   The terrors of the storm

   More examples (2)

   A chap named Eleazir Kendrick and I had chummed in together the summer afore and built a fish-weir and shanty at Setuckit Point, down Orham way. For a spell we done pretty well. Then there came a reg'lar terror of a sou'wester same as you don't get one summer in a thousand, and blowed the shanty flat and ripped about half of the weir poles out of the sand.

   Paradoxically, the sharp and unambiguous formulas in which Lenin called for the use of terror and denied the possibility of democracy and freedom testified to the fact that freedom had not yet been completely eradicated.

4. Terrorism.

   Usage

   • Uncountable

   Examples

   a terror attack

   the War on Terror

   More examples (1)

   Rank-and-file progressives don’t usually think of the immigration policies they support—expanding refugee quotas, easing restrictions on some classes of immigrants, and ending family separation—as an endorsement of detention, deportation, and racialized terror.

5. A night terror.

   Usage

   • Countable

Adjective

1. A strict teacher who fails most of the students.

   Usage

   • Philippines
   • Slang

   Related words

   alarmconsternationdismaydreadfright

   Examples

   I have a terror math teacher.

Noun

1. an overwhelming feeling of fear and anxiety

   Synonyms

   panicaffright

   Broader terms

   fearfearfulnessfright

2. a person who inspires fear or dread

   Synonyms

   scourgethreat

   Broader terms

   actordoerworker

   Examples

   he was the terror of the neighborhood

3. a very troublesome child

   Synonyms

   bratlittle terrorholy terror

   Broader terms

   impscampmonkeyrascalrapscallionscalawagscallywag

4. the use of extreme fear in order to coerce people (especially for political reasons)

   Broader terms

   coercion

   Examples

   he used terror to make them confess