a. (sb.) Also 5–6 terry-, 6 terra-, terre-, tirre-. (a. F. terrible (12th c.), ad. L. terribilis, f. terrēre to frighten: see -BLE.]
1. Exciting or fitted to excite terror; such as to inspire great fear or dread; frightful, dreadful.
c. 1430. Lydg., Min. Poems (Percy Soc.), 142. Ther roos up oon out of his sepulture, Terrible of face.
c. 1450. Holland, Howlat, 620. That terrible felloun my spreit affrayd.
1508. Dunbar, Tua Mariit Wemen, 266. With a terrebill tail … stangand as edderis.
1565. in Sir J. Picton, L’pool Munic. Rec. (1883), I. 108. The marvelloussest and terriblest storm.
1612. Brinsley, Lud. Lit., xxvii. (1627), 277. In very many schooles … the whole gouernment maintained only by continuall and terrible whipping.
1721. Strype, Eccl. Mem., II. I. v. 36. Punished … to the terrible example of all others.
1791. Cowper, Iliad, IV. 515. The Greeks … With martial order terrible advanced.
1860. Tyndall, Glac., I. vii. 50. A foe more terrible than the avalanches.
1870. Swinburne, Ess. & Stud. (1875), 311. Superb instances of terrible beauty undeformed by horrible detail.
2. Exciting some feeling akin to dread or awe; very violent, severe, painful, or bad; hence colloq. as a mere intensive: Very great, excessive. (Cf. the similar use of tremendous, awful, frightful, etc.)
1596. Dalrymple, trans. Leslie’s Hist. Scot. (S.T.S.), I. 128. Thair constant amitie … to thair nychtbouris the Britanis brocht a terrabill feir.
1628. Earle, Microcosm. (Arb.), 49. He is a terrible fastner on a piece of Beefe.
1670. Marvell, Corr., Wks. (Grosart), II. 315. The terrible Bill against Conventicles.
1737. L. Clarke, Hist. Bible, IV. (1740), 227. The terriblest blow of all.
1779. Mirror, No. 41, ¶ 6. I was told it was a great way off, and over terrible mountains.
1829. Lytton, Devereux, I. ii. He was a terrible caviller at the holy mysteries of Catholicism.
1844. Dickens, Mart. Chuz., xi. She’s a terrible one to laugh.
1853. Kane, Grinnell Exp., xxxiv. (1856), 301. Even you, terrible worker as you are, could not study in the Arctic regions.
3. quasi-adv. = TERRIBLY. (Chiefly in sense 2.)
c. 1489. Caxton, Sonnes of Aymon, i. 42. The duke … spored hys horse terryble.
1606. S. Gardiner, Bk. Angling, 13. The world is a Sea … terrible salt thorough sin.
1634. Sir T. Herbert, Trav., 5. The weather being terrible hot.
1796. Jane Austen, Lett. (1884), I. 126. We were so terrible good as to take James in our carriage.
1877. Freeman, in Life & Lett. (1895), II. viii. 158. I was in a terrible bad way.
4. Comb., as terrible-browed, -looking.
1876. Geo. Eliot, Dan. Der., liv. He seemed to her a terrible-browed angel.
1906. Westm. Gaz., 21 April, 4/1. There was only one burglar, by no means a terrible-looking fellow.
B. sb. A terrible thing or being; something that causes terror or dread. Usually in pl.
a. 1619. Fotherby, Atheom., I. xii. § 5 (1622), 133. Which maketh the cogitation of death, of all other terribles, to sceme the most terrible.
1682. Flavell, Fear, ii. 9. Job calls it the king of terrors … or the most terrible of terribles.
1850. J. Struthers, Poet. Wks., II. 149. One has, between Grecian and Gothic story, generated a new race of terribles.
