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afraid.

Impressed with fear or apprehension; in fear.

6 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

adj/əˈfɹeɪd//əˈfɹɛd/Southern-US
  1. Impressed with fear or apprehension; in fear.

    predicative
    He is afraid of death.
    He is afraid to ask her out.
  2. Regretful, sorry; expressing a reluctance to face an unpleasant situation.

    predicative
    I am afraid I cannot help you in this matter.
  3. Worried about, feeling concern for, fearing for (someone or something).

    predicative
Where this word comes from

From Middle English affrayed, affraied, past participle of afraien (“to affray”), from Anglo-Norman afrayer (“to terrify, disquiet, disturb”), from Old French effreer, esfreer (“to disturb, remove the peace from”), from es- (“out”) + freer (“to secure, secure the peace”), from Frankish *friþu (“security, peace”), from Proto-Germanic *friþuz (“peace”), from Proto-Germanic *frijōną (“to free; to love”), from Proto-Indo-European *prāy-, *prēy- (“to like, love”). By surface analysis, affray + -ed. Compare also afeard. More at free, friend.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.