Dread

How to spell dread

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce dread

What does dread mean?

1. verbTo anticipate something with great fear or reluctance.
2. nounA deep feeling of fear or apprehension about something likely to happen.

Dread in a sentence

• verb

  Many employees dread the annual performance review.

• noun

  A sense of dread settled over the office before the layoffs.

• verb

  Most drivers dread the long trip back through the snow.

• noun

  He opened the tax bill with quiet dread.

Where does dread come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Dread comes from the Old English verb ondrǣdan, which meant 'to fear greatly' or 'to be terrified of', formed from a prefix on- combined with the root drǣdan meaning 'to counsel against' or 'to fear'. Over the medieval period the unstressed prefix wore away, leaving the bare form 'dread' that we still write today. The word is part of the native Germanic stock of English rather than a later borrowing from Latin or French, which is why it stays short and blunt on the page. From the verb came the noun sense, a deep apprehension about something coming, recorded from around the 1200s. The spelling keeps the 'ea' even though it sounds like a short 'e', a fossil of older pronunciation that catches some writers out, much as it does in 'bread' and 'head'.

How the word is built

• dread (from Old English ondrǣdan: to fear greatly), single root with no separable affixes