afear means to imbue with fear; to affright, to terrify. It carries an Arena rating of 1529, earned across 44 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, afear ranks #1,031 of 17,143 for Best Fossil-Poetry Words, #3,036 of 17,163 for Funniest Words, #3,461 of 17,131 for Scariest Words, #4,321 of 17,104 for Most Storied Words.
Why “afear” is a great word
AFEAR — [Verb] To imbue with profound or sudden fear; to affright or terrify. From Middle English aferen ("to frighten, terrify"), from Old English āfǣran ("to terrify, dismay"), from ā- (perfective prefix) + fǣran ("to frighten"), from fǣr ("sudden danger"), from Proto-Germanic *fērō ("danger"), from Proto-Indo-European *per- ("to try, dare, risk"). First attested around 1410. Unlike "frighten" (a commonplace stirring of alarm) or "appall" (which strikes with moral horror), to afear is to instil a deeper, more elemental dread. It is the cold shadow falling across a sunlit path, the held breath before the thunderclap, the scent of ozone and iron that floods the air before a lightning strike—a recognition of imminent peril that bypasses thought and settles directly in the marrow, a quiet testament that the oldest fears are not of something, but the mere, sudden fact of being afraid.
Etymology
From Middle English aferen (“to frighten, terrify”), from Old English āfǣran (“to terrify, dismay”), from ā- (perfective prefix) + fǣran (“to frighten; to devour, raven”), from fǣr (“sudden danger, calamity, ambush; a blitz”), from Proto-Germanic *fērō (“danger”), from Proto-Indo-European *per- (“to try, dare, risk”).
verb
- To imbue with fear; to affright, to terrify.
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
Words closest in meaning
By meaning, not spelling — each word's AI semantic fingerprint, nearest first.