What's the difference between awful and frightening?

Awful


Definition:

  • (a.) Oppressing with fear or horror; appalling; terrible; as, an awful scene.
  • (a.) Inspiring awe; filling with profound reverence, or with fear and admiration; fitted to inspire reverential fear; profoundly impressive.
  • (a.) Struck or filled with awe; terror-stricken.
  • (a.) Worshipful; reverential; law-abiding.
  • (a.) Frightful; exceedingly bad; great; -- applied intensively; as, an awful bonnet; an awful boaster.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) But at the same time I didn't feel like, 'Aw, I'm home!'
  • (2) It seems like an awfully long way from the ground.” He added: “When I was younger, I dreamed of being an astronaut, but I also wanted to be a policeman or a firebreather.
  • (3) EEG waves were similar during Aw and Qw but they diminished in amplitude and frequency when passing from these states to Qs, and both parameters increased during As.
  • (4) In vitro blastogenic responses of peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMN) to heterogeneous schistosome-derived antigens (eggs, SEA; adult worms, AW; and cercariae, CERC) were evaluated.
  • (5) Asked whether the loss of control of the streets was embarrassing, Sir Paul replied: "Well the one thing I would say is that it must have been an awful time for the people trying to go about their daily business in those buildings.
  • (6) By contrast, storage fungi, especially Aspergillus spp., are able to grow at low water activities (aw, 0.70-0.75) enabling them to initiate grain spoilage.
  • (7) It was a bit of a nightmare … there wasn't an awful lot I could do."
  • (8) It’s very, very difficult to feel any optimism about this summit or what it will do for people looking for a safe place for them and their families right at this moment, nor tackle the awful actions of countries who are now thinking, ‘If other countries won’t help take responsibility, then why should we?’ and are now driving back desperate people.
  • (9) It has been awfully hard-won, carved slowly out of a big block of human agony.
  • (10) AW: Well, I think a rather terrific movie, actually.
  • (11) For the AW group the occurrence rate becomes 0.00043 per chromosome per generation for all aberrations and 0.00041 for inversions.
  • (12) Third, we must do more to strengthen the old principle of contribution: there are lots of people right now who feel they pay an awful lot more in than they ever get back.
  • (13) "We welcome a consultation, but default filters are awful," said ORG executive director Jim Killock.
  • (14) All samples are well detected by anti-B from AW, Aend, Ax, Am but none is detected by anti-B from ABx, Cis AB, or by an auto-anti-B.
  • (15) I even suspect that if Charlotte had truly known what marriage to a man so teeth-gnashingly awful really meant – in a way that no woman without the experience of going out with, let alone sleeping with, someone inappropriate can – she would have made a different choice.
  • (16) To determine whether the presence of small-intestinal malabsorption is associated with the development of AWS in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-infected patients with chronic diarrhea, we retrospectively reviewed the results of D-xylose testing performed in the clinical evaluation of 21 consecutive HIV-infected patients with chronic diarrhea.
  • (17) The atmospherics between the Athens government and its antagonists, which is now just about every player of importance in the rest of Europe, have been awful for weeks and have got more poisonous as they have neared the crunch.
  • (18) Cell lines AW 13516 and AW 8507 were derived from poorly differentiated SCC and epidermoid carcinoma of the tongue respectively.
  • (19) We worked awfully hard for this Premier League status and we don’t want to give it up.” Gylfi Sigurdsson’s 61st-minute strike – his sixth goal in 10 games – settled a scrappy Liberty Stadium contest that failed to spark into life until the Iceland international finished from substitute Leroy Fer’s pass.
  • (20) 9.27pm BST 67 min: The Argentinian fans are making an awful lot of noise here.

Frightening


Definition:

  • (p. pr. & vb. n.) of Frighten

Example Sentences:

  • (1) A former Labour minister, Nicholas Brown, said the public were frightened they "were going to be spied on" and that "illegally obtained" information would find its way to the public domain.
  • (2) The sound of the ambulance frightened us, especially us children, and panic gripped the entire community: people believe that whoever is taken into the ambulance to the hospital will die – you so often don’t see them again.
  • (3) Can somebody who is not a billionaire, who stands for working families, actually win an election into which billionaires are pouring millions of dollars?” Naming prominent and controversial rightwing donors, he said: “It is not just Hillary, it is the Koch brothers, it is Sheldon Adelson.” Stephanopoulos seized the moment, asking: “Are you lumping her in with them?” Choosing to refer to the 2010 supreme court decision that removed limits on corporate political donations, rather than address the question directly, Sanders replied: “What I am saying is that I get very frightened about the future of American democracy when this becomes a battle between billionaires.
  • (4) Subjective measures of anxiety, frightening cognitions and body sensations were obtained across the phases.
  • (5) There is no support in the system and it’s a very frightening and distressing situation to be in.
  • (6) "The problem in the community is that the elderly who live on their own on ground floors are frightened to open the windows because of vandalism and burglary," he says.
  • (7) You say that she taught you not to feel frightened.
  • (8) The facts speak for themselves but it was Mayweather’s refusal to address the allegations that was particularly frightening.
  • (9) Despite the warnings, new protesters of all ages continued to arrive in the camp, insisting they would not be frightened away.
  • (10) "I heard five explosions during the protest this evening and I was frightened - I just wanted to get out of there.
  • (11) I briefly consider logging into a relative’s AOL account and entering the keywords “the sadness of constantly frightened old white people”, but that seems too general.
  • (12) Regardless of fringe rucks, these protests are more likely to lay the ground for wider public and industrial campaigns than frighten them off.
  • (13) Ukraine frightened people here,” says one diplomatic source in Minsk.
  • (14) This is the most frightening picture you will ever see.
  • (15) Actually, I had betrayed the seriousness of what had happened, because my story ignored the fact that I had been genuinely frightened and in a degree of danger during the heckling.
  • (16) Narcolepsy, with its specific symptomatology is an intriguing but often frightening disease.
  • (17) The comedian Stephen Mangan called Cameron’s warning “panicky” and “daft”, while another comedian, Vikki Stone, shared a picture of herself hiding in the shed with a colander on her head and said: “Dear David Cameron I’m frightened.
  • (18) Of those who did not read the notes, only four (17%) were frightened by what they might read, while others stated that they did not have their glasses, could not read, did not think it was their place, thought the notes would not be interesting, or did not understand the policy.
  • (19) Sonia Zambakides, head of Save the Children's Somalia emergency response, added: "While there has been an improvement in these areas thanks to the international aid effort, children are still dying at a frightening rate across Somalia.
  • (20) The reality of the plan you went along with and helped execute was that your children were to be frightened out of sleep in the middle of the night and rescued by their father from a fire that should never have been started.