FEARSOME

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does fearsome mean? 

• FEARSOME (adjective)
  The adjective FEARSOME has 1 sense:

1. causing fear or dread or terror

  Familiarity information: FEARSOME used as an adjective is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• FEARSOME (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Causing fear or dread or terror

Synonyms:

awful; dire; direful; dread; dreaded; dreadful; fearful; fearsome; frightening; horrendous; horrific; terrible

Context example:

a terrible curse

Similar:

alarming (frightening because of an awareness of danger)

 Context examples 

It's a name for any kind of devil. The poor beggars think that there is something fearsome in this direction, and therefore they avoid it.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

He had a very dark, fearsome face, and a gleam in his eyes that comes back to me in my dreams.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

And a fearsome sight it was that met their eyes!

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

You doen't need to be so fearsome, and take on so much.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Yet the old time fairy tale, having served for generations, may now be classed as historical in the children's library; for the time has come for a series of newer wonder tales in which the stereotyped genie, dwarf and fairy are eliminated, together with all the horrible and blood-curdling incidents devised by their authors to point a fearsome moral to each tale.

(The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum)

It was a fearsome walk, and one which will be with me so long as memory holds.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

For three or four minutes on end the fearsome duet continued, while all the foliage rustled with the rising of startled birds.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

That these monsters should tear each other to pieces was a part of the strange struggle for existence, but that they should turn upon modern man, that they should deliberately track and hunt down the predominant human, was a staggering and fearsome thought.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Again the feeling of vague horror came upon our souls, and we gazed round with frightened eyes at the dark shadows which lay around us, in all of which some fearsome shape might be lurking.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)