dread

—dreadable, adj. —dreadness, n.

/dred/, v.t.

1. to fear greatly; be in extreme apprehension of: to dread death.

2. to be reluctant to do, meet, or experience: I dread going to big parties.

3. Archaic. to hold in respectful awe.

v.i.

4. to be in great fear.

n.

5. terror or apprehension as to something in the future; great fear.

6. a person or thing dreaded.

7. Archaic. deep awe or reverence.

adj.

8. greatly feared; frightful; terrible.

9. held in awe or reverential fear.

[1125-75; ME dreden (v.), OE draedan, aph. var. of ADRAEDAN, ONDRAEDAN; c. OHG intratan to fear]

Syn. 5. See fear. 8. dire, dreadful, horrible.

Ant. 1. welcome.

* * *

▪ philosophy

also called  Anxiety or Angst,  

      a fundamental category of existentialism. According to the 19th-century philosopher Søren Kierkegaard (Kierkegaard, Søren), dread, or angst, is a desire for what one fears and is central to his conception of original sin. For the 20th-century German philosopher Martin Heidegger (Heidegger, Martin), anxiety is one of the distinctive ways through which Dasein (the historical person) is disclosed as a contingent being, and thus anxiety is that through which fear first becomes possible.

* * *