What does dread mean?
Dread is a word for anticipatory fear — the heavy, lingering apprehension one feels before something unwelcome happens. As a verb it means to await a future event with anxiety or reluctance, as in dreading a difficult conversation or a Monday morning; as a noun it names the fear itself, often described as a creeping or overwhelming sense of dread. Unlike ordinary worry, dread implies emotional weight and duration: the feared thing has not yet arrived, but its shadow dominates the present. The word appears in fixed expressions such as 'in dread of' and 'dread the thought of', and its adjective form, dreadful, has softened over time to mean simply very bad. Historically rooted in Old English, dread once also conveyed awe or reverence, a sense that survives in compounds like dreadnought and dreadlocks.
To anticipate a future event or situation with great fear, anxiety, or reluctance.
"I dread having to make that phone call tomorrow."
Usually followed by a gerund ('dread doing'); the constructions 'dread to think' and 'dread to imagine' are common fixed exceptions.
Intense fear, apprehension, or awe, especially concerning something that may happen.
"She felt a rising sense of dread as the deadline approached."
Often modified by words like 'creeping', 'growing', or 'sheer'; uncountable in this sense, though the plural 'dreads' informally refers to strands of dreadlocked hair.
The plural 'dreads' is rare in the sense of fears; today it survives almost exclusively as informal shortening of 'dreadlocks', referring to individual matted locks of hair.
"He's been growing his dreads out for years."
The 'dread' in dreadlocks and dreadnoughts isn't about fear of hair or battleships — both names trade on the word's old power to mean awe and terror, making dread one of English's most quietly influential words.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of dread
Dread descends directly from the Old English verb drǣdan, meaning to fear or stand in awe, which itself traces back to a Proto-Germanic root shared by related forms in other early Germanic languages. In Middle English the word broadened into both verb and noun uses and was commonly paired with a now-obscure prefix in the older form 'adread'. Its original sense included religious awe and reverence — a monarch might be called one's 'dread lord' — before the modern meaning of fearful anticipation became dominant. Derivatives such as dreadful and dreadnought preserve echoes of this older, more powerful register.
Related word forms
How dread is actually used
As a verb, dread typically takes a gerund ('dread doing') rather than an infinitive in modern British and American English, though 'dread to think' and 'dread to imagine' are fixed exceptions used mainly in formal speech. The noun carries a heavier, more visceral connotation than 'fear' or 'worry', suggesting prolonged, looming apprehension rather than a momentary fright.