terror

• terrour (obsolete or hypercorrect)

From late Middle English terrour, from Old French terreur f (“terror, fear, dread”), from Latin terror m (“fright, fear, terror”), from terrēre (“to frighten, terrify”), from Old Latin tr̥reō, from Proto-Italic *trozeō, from Proto-Indo-European *tre- (“to shake”), *tres- (“to tremble”).

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈtɛɹ.ɚ/
  • (some accents) IPA^(key): /tɛɚ/

  • Audio (US):

    (file)

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈtɛɹ.ə/
• Rhymes: -ɛɹə(ɹ), -ɛə(ɹ)
• Hyphenation: ter‧ror
• Homophones: tare, tear (some American accents)
• Homophones: terra, Terra (non-rhotic)

terror (countable and uncountable, plural terrors)

1. (countable, uncountable) Intense dread, fright, or fear.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:fear

   • 1794, William Godwin, Things as they are; or, The adventures of Caleb:

     The terrors with which I was seized […] were extreme.

   • 1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, →OCLC:

     "How thinkest thou that I rule this people? I have but a regiment of guards to do my bidding, therefore it is not by force. It is by terror. My empire is of the imagination."

   • 1963, C.L.R. James, The Black Jacobins, 2nd Revised edition, page 9:

     Fear of their cargo bred a savage cruelty into the crew. One captain, to strike terror into the rest, killed a slave and dividing heart, liver and entrails into 300 pieces made each of the slaves eat one, threatening those who refused with the same torture. Such incidents were not rare.

2. (uncountable) The action or quality of causing dread; terribleness, especially such qualities in narrative fiction.
   • 1921, Edith Birkhead, The tale of terror: a study of the Gothic romance:
3. (countable) Something or someone that causes such fear.
   • 1788 June, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, “Mr. Sheridan’s Speech, on Summing Up the Evidence on the Second, or Begum Charge against Warren Hastings, Esq., Delivered before the High Court of Parliament, June 1788”, in Select Speeches, Forensick and Parliamentary, with Prefatory Remarks by N[athaniel] Chapman, M.D., volume I, [Philadelphia, Pa.]: Published by Hopkins and Earle, no. 170, Market Street, published 1808, →OCLC, page 474:

     The Begums' ministers, on the contrary, to extort from them the disclosure of the place which concealed the treasures, were, […] after being fettered and imprisoned, led out on to a scaffold, and this array of terrours proving unavailing, the meek tempered Middleton, as a dernier resort, menaced them with a confinement in the fortress of Chunargar. Thus, my lords, was a British garrison made the climax of cruelties!

   • 1841, Ralph Waldo Emerson, (Please provide the book title or journal name):

     The terrors of the storm

   • 1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter I, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y., London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC:

     A chap named Eleazir Kendrick and I had chummed in together the summer afore and built a fish-weir and shanty at Setuckit Point, down Orham way. For a spell we done pretty well. Then there came a reg'lar terror of a sou'wester same as you don't get one summer in a thousand, and blowed the shanty flat and ripped about half of the weir poles out of the sand.

4. (uncountable) Terrorism.

   a terror attack

   the War on Terror

   • 2019 July 15, Greg Afinogenov, “The Jewish Case for Open Borders”, in Jewish Currents‎^[1], number Summer 2019:

     Rank-and-file progressives don’t usually think of the immigration policies they support—expanding refugee quotas, easing restrictions on some classes of immigrants, and ending family separation—as an endorsement of detention, deportation, and racialized terror.

5. (pathology, countable) A night terror.
6. (Philippines, slang) A strict teacher that fails most of the students.

• alarm
• fright
• consternation
• dread
• dismay

• “terror”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
• terror in Keywords for Today: A 21st Century Vocabulary, edited by The Keywords Project, Colin MacCabe, Holly Yanacek, 2018.
• “terror”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• “terror”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.

• rorter

(Can this⁽⁺⁾ etymology be sourced?) Borrowed from Latin terrōrem m.

This entry needs an audio pronunciation. If you are a native speaker with a microphone, please record this word. The recorded pronunciation will appear here when it's ready.

• IPA^(key): (Central) [təˈror]
• IPA^(key): (Balearic) [təˈro]
• IPA^(key): (Valencia) [teˈroɾ]

terror m or (archaic, regional or poetic) f (plural terrors)

1. terror, horror

   (Can we add an example for this sense?)

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

This entry needs an audio pronunciation. If you are a native speaker with a microphone, please record this word. The recorded pronunciation will appear here when it's ready.

This entry needs pronunciation information. If you are familiar with the IPA then please add some!

terror c (singular definite terroren, not used in plural form)

1. terror

   (Can we add an example for this sense?)

• “terror” in Den Danske Ordbog

Learned borrowing from Latin terror m.

• IPA^(key): /tɛˈroɾ/ [t̪ɛˈroɾ]
• Rhymes: -oɾ
• Hyphenation: te‧rror

terror m (plural terrores)

1. terror

   Synonyms: espanto, horror, pavor

   (Can we add an example for this sense?)

• Xavier Varela Barreiro, Xavier Gómez Guinovart (2006–2018) “terror”, in Corpus Xelmírez - Corpus lingüístico da Galicia medieval (in Galician), Santiago de Compostela: ILG
• Antón Luís Santamarina Fernández, editor (2006–2013), “terror”, in Dicionario de Dicionarios da lingua galega [Dictionary of Dictionaries of the Galician language] (in Galician), Santiago de Compostela: Instituto da Lingua Galega
• “terror”, in Dicionario da Real Academia Galega (in Galician), A Coruña: Royal Galician Academy, 2012–2024
• “terror” in Dicionário Estraviz de galego (2014).
• Antón Luís Santamarina Fernández, Ernesto Xosé González Seoane, María Álvarez de la Granja, editors (2003–2018), “terror”, in Tesouro informatizado da lingua galega (in Galician), Santiago de Compostela: Instituto da Lingua Galega

Borrowed from English terror, from Latin terror m.^[1]

• IPA^(key): [ˈtɛrːor]
• Hyphenation: ter‧ror
• Rhymes: -or

terror (plural terrorok)

1. terror (especially the action or quality of causing dread)

   Synonym: megfélemlítés

   (Can we add an example for this sense?)

• terrortámadás

• terror in Bárczi, Géza and László Országh. A magyar nyelv értelmező szótára (“The Explanatory Dictionary of the Hungarian Language”, abbr.: ÉrtSz.). Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1959–1962. Fifth ed., 1992: →ISBN

From terreō (“frighten, terrify”) +‎ -or m.

This entry needs an audio pronunciation. If you are a native speaker with a microphone, please record this word. The recorded pronunciation will appear here when it's ready.

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): /ˈter.ror/, [ˈt̪ɛrːɔr]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈter.ror/, [ˈt̪ɛrːor]

terror m (genitive terrōris); third declension

1. a dread, terror, great fear, alarm, panic

   Synonyms: pavor m, timor m, metus m

   (Can we add an example for this sense?)

2. an object of fear or dread

   (Can we add an example for this sense?)

Third-declension noun.

• “terror”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “terror”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• Carl Meißner, Henry William Auden (1894) Latin Phrase-Book‎^[2], London: Macmillan and Co.
  • to inspire fear, terror: timorem, terrorem alicui inicere, more strongly incutere
    
  • terror, panic seizes some one: terror incidit alicui
    
  • terror, panic seizes some one: terror invadit in aliquem (rarely alicui, after Livy aliquem)
    
  • to overwhelm some one with terror: in terrorem conicere aliquem
    

Borrowed from English terror, borrowed from Latin terror m.

This entry needs pronunciation information. If you are familiar with the IPA then please add some!

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terror m (definite singular terroren, uncountable)

1. terror

   (Can we add an example for this sense?)

• terrorangrep
• terrorhandling
• terrorregime

• “terror” in The Bokmål Dictionary.

Borrowed from English terror, borrowed from Latin terror m.

This entry needs an audio pronunciation. If you are a native speaker with a microphone, please record this word. The recorded pronunciation will appear here when it's ready.

• IPA^(key): [ˈtʰerru̞r]

terror m (definite singular terroren, uncountable)

1. terror

   (Can we add an example for this sense?)

• terrorhandling
• terrorregime

• “terror” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.

 

Polish Wikipedia has an article on:

terror

Wikipedia ^pl

Borrowed from English terror, borrowed from Old French terreur f, borrowed from Latin terror m, from terrēre (“to frighten, terrify”).

• IPA^(key): /ˈtɛr.rɔr/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛrrɔr
• Syllabification: ter‧ror

terror m inan

1. (politics) terror (policy of political repression and violence intended to subdue political opposition)

   (Can we add an example for this sense?)

• terror in Wielki słownik języka polskiego, Instytut Języka Polskiego PAN
• terror in Polish dictionaries at PWN

Borrowed from Latin terrōrem m.

This entry needs an audio pronunciation. If you are a native speaker with a microphone, please record this word. The recorded pronunciation will appear here when it's ready.

• Hyphenation: ter‧ror

terror m (plural terrores)

1. terror (intense fear)
   • 2003, J. K. Rowling, Lia Wyler, Harry Potter e a Ordem da Fênix, Rocco, page 493:

     Os olhos do elfo se arregalavam de terror e ele tremia.

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

   • 2009, Robson Campos De Abreu, Teatro para Mágicos, Clube de Autores, page 60:

     A música é tão importante que existe até categoria de premiação no Oscar, pois a mesma ajuda a criar todo o clima que vemos nos filmes[,] seja este um filme divertido e infantil, ou seja,^[sic] aquele terror super hiper mega blaster assustador.

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

2. (Brazil, slang) a very troublesome person or thing

   Você é um terror, garoto! ― You're naughty, boy!

   Esses bandidos são um terror ― Those criminals are terrible!

• aterrorizar
• terrorismo m
• terrorista

• “terror”, in Dicionário infopédia da Língua Portuguesa (in Portuguese), Porto: Porto Editora, 2003–2024
• “terror”, in Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa (in Portuguese), Lisbon: Priberam, 2008–2024

Borrowed from Latin terrorem m.^[1]

• IPA^(key): /teˈroɾ/ [t̪eˈroɾ]
• Rhymes: -oɾ
• Syllabification: te‧rror

terror m (plural terrores)

1. horror (genre)
2. terror

   (Can we add an example for this sense?)

• “terror”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.7, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 2023 November 28

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

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This entry needs an audio pronunciation. If you are a native speaker with a microphone, please record this word. The recorded pronunciation will appear here when it's ready.

terror c

1. terror

   (Can we add an example for this sense?)

• terrorisera
• terrorism
• terrorist