dreadful

Etymology

From Middle English dredful, dredfull, dredeful (also dreful), equivalent to dread + -ful.

adj

1. Full of something causing dread, whether
   1. Genuinely horrific, awful, or alarming; dangerous, risky.
   2. (hyperbolic) Unpleasant, awful, very bad (also used as an intensifier).
      Here some... Look dreadful gay in their own sparkling blood. 1682, T. Creech's translation of Lucretius, De Natura Rerum, Book II, 52
      After a dreadful performance in the opening 45 minutes, they upped their game after the break... December 10, 2011, Marc Higginson, “Bolton 1-2 Aston Villa”, in BBC Sport
   3. (obsolete) Awesome, awe-inspiring, causing feelings of reverence.
2. (obsolete) Full of dread, whether
   1. Scared, afraid, frightened.
      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. 1958, T[erence] H[anbury] White, chapter VIII, in The Once and Future King, New York, N.Y.: G. P. Putnam's Sons, book I (The Sword in the Stone)
   2. Timid, easily frightened.
   3. Reverential, full of pious awe.

adv

1. (informal) Dreadfully.
   I'm sorry, Miz Terrigan. I'm dreadful sorry. 2003, David Davis, Of Preachers and Pagans, page 199
   You don't look so dreadful poor in the face as you did a while back. 2007, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Professor At The Breakfast Table, page 130
   "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? 2015, Hesba Stretton, Jessica's first prayer: A Christian Fiction of Hesba Stretton

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.