v. [f. FRIGHT sb. + -EN6. A late formation, which has taken the place of the earlier FRIGHT v.] trans. To throw into a fright; to terrify; = FRIGHT v. 2.
1666. Pepys, Diary, 4 Sept. The practice of blowing up of houses in Tower-street, those next the Tower, which at first did frighten people more than any thing; but it stopped the fire where it was done.
1697. Dampier, Voy., I. x. 280. But even that was a Voyage enough to frighten us, considering our scanty Provisions.
1791. Mrs. Radcliffe, Rom. Forest, x. I am sorry I frightened you so last night.
1842. Abdy, Water Cure (1843), 206. These lunatics … never frighten women or children.
1883. Froude, Short Stud., Ser. IV. I. vi. 65. In fearing that England would go into schism the pope was frightened by a shadow.
b. With complement: To scare into, out of, etc.
1691. W. Nicholls, Answ. Naked Gospel, 47. They [Bishops] were frightened to it by the Arms and Threats of the Souldiers.
1700. S. L., trans. C. Fryke’s Voy. E. Ind., 278. [They] thought by Fire and Sword, and their barbarous Slaughters and Murthers, to frighten him out of his Kingdom, but all in vain.
1726. Shelvocke, Voy. round World (1757), 116–7. Their Caciques are somewhat stripped of their real authority by the government of the Spaniards, who having these people under a more secure subjection than any on the continent, they frighten them into the most laborious submission, by their menaces and hard usage.
1806–7. J. Beresford, Miseries Hum. Life (1826), XXI. xv. Learning to ride—or, in other words, paying handsomely for the privilege of going, day after day, to be canted out of your saddle, and frightened out of your wits.
1883. Froude, Short Stud., Ser. IV. II. i. 168. The French Revolution had frightened all classes out of advanced ways of thinking, and society in town and country was Tory in politics, and determined to allow no innovations upon the inherited faith.
1890. Spectator, 1 Nov. 583/1. Manufacturers … are frightened to death at the … rise in prices.
1891. Daily News, 23 Nov. 2/6. There are no stocks to frighten down prices.
1892. Law Times, XCII. 394/2. Evidently the idea was to frighten and terrorise the lady into paying.
Hence Frightening vbl. sb. and ppl. a. Also Frightenable a., capable of being frightened; Frightener, one who or that which frightens.
1715. Burnet, Hist. Ref., III. 390, note. I do not find there was any frightning Threatnings.
1812. Coleridge, Lit. Rem. (1836), I. 362. Hobbes makes a state of war the natural state of man from the essential and ever continuing nature of man, as not a moral, but only a frightenable, being.
1841. Col. Hawker, Diary (1893), II. 195. A bird frightener from Southampton.
1850. Mrs. F. Trollope, Petticoat Govt., I. xi. You do not look so—so frightenable as my aunt does.
c. 1854. Faber, Hymn, Predestination, vi.
| And still the frightening echoes grow | |
| As it goes sounding on. | |
| Ibid., Divine Favours, v. | |
| Why didst Thou come so frighteningly, | |
| Why take me, Lord! so unawares? |
1865. Englishman’s Mag., Oct. 298. The number and variety of living things is positively frightening.
