See Also: terror(dictionary)
terror(dictionary)
TERROR(law)
sleep terror(medicine)
Reign of Terror(encyclopedia)
Sleep terror disorder(health)

terror (iou)



terror noun & verb. LME.
[Old French terrour (mod. terreur) from Latin terror, from terrere frighten: see -OR.]
A. noun.
The state of being terrified or extremely frightened; intense fear or dread; an instance or feeling of this. LME.
L. Hudson The terror in which she wakes, her pulse racing. G. Daly He lived in terror that his all-consuming love would..force her to reject him.
The state or quality of being terrible or causing intense fear or dread; a thing or person that causes terror; something terrifying. Also, a literary genre concerned with the excitation of pleasurable feelings of fear by the depiction of violence, the supernatural, etc. (freq. in novel of terror, tale of terror below). LME.
R. W. Emerson The terrors of the storm. C. S. Forester All his reading..had warned him of the terrors of a lee shore.
b. A formidable or exasperating person; a troublesome person or thing, esp. a troublesome child. Also holy terror. joc. & colloq. L19.
A. McCowen At school I was known as a terror and went looking for fights.
The use of organized repression or extreme intimidation; terrorism; spec. = the Terror below. E19.
Reader's Digest The terror began with the cold-blooded massacre of students in Tiananmen Square.
Phrases: balance of terror: see BALANCE noun. holy terror: see sense 2b above. king of terrors: see KING noun. novel of terror a tale of terror in novel form. Red Terror: see RED adjective. reign of terror a period of remorseless repression or bloodshed during which the general community live in constant fear of death or violence. tale of terror a work of fiction in which violence, the supernatural, etc., are depicted so as to excite pleasurable feelings of fear in the reader. the Terror French History the period of the French Revolution from about March 1793 to July 1794, marked by extreme repression and bloodshed. White Terror: see WHITE adjective.
Comb.: terror-bombing intensive and indiscriminate aerial bombing designed to frighten a country into surrender; terror raid a bombing raid of this nature; terror-stricken, terror-struck adjectives affected with terror, terrified.
b. verb trans. Strike with terror, terrify. arch. L16.
terrorless adjective lacking terror; not causing fear or dread: E19.