a. [f. FEAR v. or sb. + -SOME.]
1. Fear-inspiring; frightful, dreadful.
1768. A. Ross, Helenore, 3722.
| A heap of men advancing at full dreel, | |
| And, oh, the foremost looks a fearsome chiel! |
1816. Scott, Old Mort., xxxii. War’s a fearsome thing.
1842. Barham, Ingol. Leg., Nell Cook.
| Says the Dean, says he, ‘My Masons three! now haste and fix it tight’; | |
| And the masons three peep’d down to see, and they saw a fearsome sight. |
1871. M. Collins, Mrq. & Merch., I. viii. 336. Iron fencing, six feet high, deeply sunk in the ground, with fearsome spikes at the top.
Comb.
1815. Scott, Guy M., xxxix. ‘A muckle stoor fearsome-looking wife she was as ever I set een on.’
¶ 2. ? erron. Timid, apprehensive, frightened.
1863. A. Fonblanque, A Tangled Skein, III. 205. There was one about me who saw clearer than I did, loving as I was, jealous and fearsome of this very danger.
1871. H. Taylor, Faust (1875), I. viii. 120.
| My body ’s chill and shuddering,— | |
| I ’m but a silly, fearsome thing! |
Hence Fearsomely adv., in a fearsome manner. a. So as to excite fear. ¶ b. Timidly. Fearsomeness, the quality of being fearsome. a. Dreadfulness; terror. ¶ b. Timidity.
1876. B. L. Farjeon, Love’s Victory, ii. He looked about him fearsomely.
1883. Daily News, 5 July, 5/2. A prisoner … as fearsomely exciting as the elegant baron of fiction.
1891. T. Hardy, Tess, I. xiii. 161–2. Mr. D’Urberville, who had fallen in love with her, a gentleman not altogether local, whose reputation as a reckless gallant and heart-breaker was beginning to spread beyond the immediate boundaries of Trantridge, lent Tess’s supposed position, by its fearsomeness, a far higher fascination than it would have exercised if unhazardous.
1893. Black & White, 11 March, 286/2. The women … were hiding fearsomely in their innermost rooms.
1893. Daily News, 6 June, 3/4. There is even a fearsomeness in her expression, as if she dreaded to move.
