a. [a. F. formidable (15th c.), ad. L. formīdābil-em, f. formīdāre to fear, dread: see -ABLE.] That gives cause for fear or alarm; fit to inspire dread or apprehension. Now usually (with some obscuration of the etymological sensed: Likely to be difficult to overcome, resist, or deal with; giving cause for serious apprehension of defeat or failure.
1508. Fisher, 7 Penit. Ps. xxxviii. e e v b. The countenaunce of god shall be so formydable and ferefull that in the tyme whan myserable synners shall stande in his fyght they shall thynke themselfe set in a brennynge forneyse of fyre.
1548. Hall, Chron., Hen. VII., 5. Of whiche name Englishemen nomore reioysed then outwarde nacions and foreyne prynces trymbled and quaked, so muche was that name to all nacions terrible and formidable.
1658. T. Wall, Gods Revenge Enemies Ch., 30. The Leopard … being … of a formidable aspect.
1678. Wanley, Wond. Lit. World, V. i. § 97. 468/1. Charles the fifth … defeated Barbarossa, that formidable Pirat, and took Tunis.
a. 1687. Petty, Pol. Arith. (1690), 80. The decay of Timber in England is no very formidable thing, as the rebuilding of London [after the Fire of 1666] and of the ships wasted by the Dutch War [1665–7] do clearly manifest.
1759. Robertson, Hist. Scot., I. III. 178. The protestants in France were at that time a party formidable by their number, and more by the valour and enterprising genius of their leaders.
1834. L. Ritchie, Wand. by Seine, 74. The Roman fortress has perished, with the exception of part of a military wall, at the bottom of which swords of formidable dimensions, and sculptures, apparently anterior to the introduction of Christianity, have been found.
1844. Thirlwall, Greece, VIII. lx. 7. It was probably in the spring of 297 that he [Demetrius] set sail with a formidable armament; but off the coast of Attica he was overtaken by a storm, in which the greater part of his ships were wrecked, and many lives were lost.
1860. Tyndall, Glac., I. xiv. 97. After crossing the basin our way lay partly over slopes of snow, partly over loose shingle, and at one place along the edge of a formidable precipice of rock.
b. Const. to.
1665. Boyle, Occas. Refl., II. viii. (1845), 143. Tremble at these Commotions of the Appetite which would not else perhaps be formidable to me.
1855. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., III. 495. The Episcopal schismatics, thus reinforced, would probably have been as formidable to the new King and his successors as ever the Puritan schismatics had been to the princes of the House of Stuart.
c. Often applied playfully or sarcastically.
1697. Dryden, Æneid, Ded. I have dwelt so long on this Subject, that I must contract what I have to say, in reference to my Translation: Unless I wou’d swell my Preface into a Volume, and make it formidable to your Lordship, when you see so many Pages yet behind.
1777. Sheridan, Sch. Scand., IV. i. Here, now, is a maiden sifter of his, my great-aunt Deborah; done by Kneller, in his best manner, and esteemed a very formidable likeness.
1816. Keatinge, Trav. (1817), I. 275. His majesty has, at his audiences, a corps de musique of most formidable establishment, equally in point of execution as of numbers.
1879. Cassell’s Techn. Educ., VII. 23/2. A gigantic undershot wheel was placed across the Thames, which is not a very formidable river at that point.
