terrific.
Causing terror; terrifying.
Meaning & usage
Causing terror; terrifying.
Very strong or intense; excessive, tremendous.
The car came round the bend at a terrific speed.
I've got a terrific hangover this morning.
Extremely good; excellent, amazing.
I say! She's a terrific tennis player.
Where this word comes from
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *tres- Proto-Indo-European *-yeti Proto-Indo-European *-éyeti Proto-Indo-European *troséyeti Proto-Italic *trozeō Latin terreō Proto-Indo-European *dʰeh₁-der. Proto-Italic *θakos Proto-Italic *-fakos Latin -ficus Latin terrificusder. French terrifiqueder. English terrific From French terrifique, and its source, Latin terrificus (“terrifying”), from terrēre (“to frighten, terrify”) + -ficus, related to facere (“to make”). By surface analysis, terrify + -ic. The sense of excellent or amazing is an ameliorative semantic shift from the original sense of terrifying. Compare similar semantic development in sick and wicked.
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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.