Dread. adj. [dræd, Saxon.]
- Terrible; frightful.
That e'er this tongue of mine,
That laid the sentence of dread banishment
On yond' proud man, should take it off again
With words of sooth! Shakespeare's Richard II.It cannot be, but thou hast murther'd him:
So should a murtherer look, so dread, so grim. Shakespeare.To be expos'd against the warring winds?
To stand against the deep dread bolted thunder. Shakesp.Amaze
Be sure, and terrour, seiz'd the rebel host,
When, coming towards them, so dread they saw
The bottom of the mountains upward turn'd. Milt. P. Lost. - Awful; venerable in the highest degree.
Thou, attended gloriously from heav'n,
Shalt in the sky appear, and from thee send
The summoning archangels to proclaim
Thy dread tribunal. Milton's Paradise Lost, b. iii. l. 323.From this descent
Celestial virtues rising, will appear
More glorious and more dread than from no fall. Milton. - This seems to be the meaning of that controverted phrase dread majesty. Some of the old acts of parliament are said in the preface to be metuendissimi regis, our dread sovereign's.
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