Dread. adj. [dræd, Saxon.]

1. 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.

2. 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.

3. 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.