Fright

How to spell fright

6 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce fright

What does fright mean?

1. nounA sudden, sharp feeling of fear or alarm.

Fright in a sentence

• The loud bang gave the whole office a terrible fright.

• She went pale with fright when the lights suddenly cut out.

Where does fright come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Fright comes from the Old English noun fyrhtu, meaning 'fear' or 'dread', which traces back to a Germanic root shared with the modern German word Furcht, also meaning 'fear'. In the earliest English the word carried a heavier sense of terror than today's somewhat lighter idea of a sudden scare. The spelling is the real trap: the -ght cluster once represented a rough, throaty consonant (like the ch in the Scottish 'loch') that English speakers stopped pronouncing centuries ago, leaving silent letters behind. The same fossilised -ght appears in its close relatives night, light, and might, which all once had that guttural sound too. Because the spelling no longer matches the sound, writers must simply remember that the long 'i' is written igh and capped with a t.

How the word is built

• fright (from Old English fyrhtu: fear, dread); the -ght spelling preserves a once-pronounced guttural sound