Webster
✕

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Terror

Ter′ror (tĕr′rẽr), n. [L. terror, akin to terrere to frighten, for tersere; akin to Gr. τρεῖν to flee away, dread, Skr. tras to tremble, to be afraid, Russ. triasti to shake: cf. F. terreur. Cf. Deter.] 1. Extreme fear; fear that agitates body and mind; violent dread; fright.

Terror seized the rebel host. Milton.

2. That which excites dread; a cause of extreme fear.

Those enormous terrors of the Nile. Prior.

Rulers are not a terror to good works. Rom. xiii. 3.

There is no terror, Cassius, in your threats. Shak.

☞ Terror is used in the formation of compounds which are generally self-explaining: as, terror-fraught, terror-giving, terror-smitten, terror-stricken, terror-struck, and the like.

King of terrors, death. Job xviii. 14. — Reign of Terror. (F. Hist.) See in Dictionary of Noted Names in Fiction.

Syn. — Alarm; fright; consternation; dread; dismay. See Alarm.

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Noah Porter, editor (Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913). Public domain. Text as transcribed by MICRA, Inc., from Project Gutenberg. Changed for Deep Dive Bible: Greek, which our source spelled in Latin letters, set in Greek letters; entries of one spelling merged into one article; Greek words our source left out (shown as “?”), read from the 1898 printing, from the same plates (the Library of Congress’s copy), where the place could be found with certainty.