awful
Direct German Translations & Equivalents:
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Definitions & Usage
Very bad.
Exceedingly great; usually applied intensively.
(dated) Causing fear or horror; appalling, terrible.
(now rare) Awe-inspiring; filling with profound reverence or respect; profoundly impressive.
(now rare) Struck or filled with awe or reverence.
(obsolete) Terror-stricken.
Awfully; dreadfully; terribly.
(US, Canada) Very, extremely.
Notable Literary & Historical Quotes
“Shepard: You seem to know an awful lot about me. Geth: Extranet data sources. Insecure broadcasts. All organic data sent out is received. We watch you.”
— 2010, BioWare, Mass Effect 2 (Science Fiction), Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →OCLC, PC, scene: Normandy SR-2 AI Core Room:
“There was an air of gravity and importance about the garb of the person, and something indescribably odd, I might say awful, in the perfect, stonelike stillness of the figure, that effectually checked the testy comment which had at once risen to the lips of the irritated artist.”
— 1839, J. Sheridan Le Fanu, Schalken the Painter:
“At our old pastimes in the hall We gambol’d, making vain pretence Of gladness, with an awful sense Of one mute Shadow watching all.”
— 1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], “Canto XXX”, in In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, page 48: