/ˈɔːfl/
#1171 of 5,000 Core 5000
Translation
Very bad or very unpleasant.
Word origin
From Old English egefull, meaning full of awe. The old sense was "causing fear", which is how a word close to "awesome" ended up meaning very bad.
- Origin
- Old English
- Root
- egefull
- English cognates
- awe, awesome
Examples
.
"Awful" is stronger than "bad".
.
"Feel awful" can mean sorry as well as ill.
.
"Awful" goes before the noun here.
Used in
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Go to my review queueThis word is part of lesson 24.