Great fear or apprehension, especially anticipatory fear of something expected to happen..
Great fear or apprehension, especially anticipatory fear of something expected to happen.
Distinguished from fear by its forward-looking, anticipatory quality — “shrinking apprehension or expectation” of a future event — and by a heavy, sustained character, versus the more immediate nature of fear or the acute spike of terror.
Native; from Old English ondrædan. Not borrowed.
Late 12c. verb, a shortening of Old English ondrædan “to counsel against; dread, fear” (ond- “against” + rædan “to advise”). Noun from c. 1200.
The core sense (intense anticipatory fear) has been stable since Middle English. The past-participle adjective developed a sense “held in awe” by the early 15th c. A separate modern offshoot is Rastafarian “dread” (1974) / “dreadlocks.” No sourced evidence of a recent shift in the emotion sense.