awful

Word family

aw·ful1 /ˈɔːfəl $ ˈɒː-/ S1 adjectiveadj

1 BADUNPLEASANTvery bad or unpleasant 糟糕的，恶劣的；讨厌的 SYN terrible

The weather was awful.

天气很糟糕。

He is a pretty awful driver.

他开车水平相当糟糕。

That fridge smells awful.

那台冰箱气味难闻极了。

The last six months have been awful for her.

最近六个月对她来说相当难过。

I’ve stopped believing most of what he says. Isn’t that awful?

他说的大部分话我都不再相信了。很糟吧？

I’m sure Suzy is dead but the awful thing is not knowing how it happened.

我肯定苏齐是死了，但不幸的是不知道是怎么一回事。

► see thesaurus at bad, horrible

2 [only before noun] spokenVERY used to emphasize how much or how good, bad etc something is 〔用于强调〕非常的；极好的；很糟的

An awful lot of people (=a large number of people) died in the war.

很多很多的人在这场战争中死去。

He made me feel an awful fool.

他让我感觉像个大傻瓜。

3 look/feel awful ILLto look or feel ill 看上去/感觉像生病了

She’s lost a lot of weight and she looks awful.

她瘦了许多，满脸病容。

Examples from the Corpus

look/feel awful• For all her cheerfulness it was painfully obvious that she was feeling awful.• He took it away and tried to look normal but he felt awful.• The next morning I felt awful.• Tom felt quite confident of his safety, but physically he felt awful.• I felt awful, ill, all beaten up.• Every time we lose, I just feel awful inside.• In fact she felt awful, nauseous and light-headed and clammy.• Oh, and did we mention the damn stuff looked awful, stunk and tasted lousy?• You look awful - what's wrong?

4. literaryADMIRE making you feel great respect or fear 令人敬畏的

—awfulness noun [uncountableU]

n Grammar

Awful is not used with ‘very’. You say:

It was a really awful experience.

✗Don’t say: It was a very awful experience.

Examples from the Corpus

awful• The soup tasted awful.• At 300dpi the quality achieved with photographs can generally be described as poor to awful.• I felt awful about not being able to help.• It sounds awful, but I just can't stand his parents.• a really awful concert• The curtains in the photo are an awful fifties maroon, the color of dried blood.• He truly represents an awful lot from a developmental standpoint.• You seem to take up an awful lot of energy and time.• My father and Ernest were safe, but the awful news of Elizabeth's death killed my father.• But those are still awful numbers.• an awful power• Philip Seymour Hoffman blows them all away with a scene-stealing black comic turn as Dickie's awful preppie buddy.• Then as the electric doors swished open and three police officers jumped out on to the ballast, the awful realisation dawned.

awful thing• The most awful thing has happened.• You have no idea of what awful things have happened here.• If I pulled one book out, lord knows what awful thing might result.• He told me he was called Willie, but I though that was a jolly awful thing to do to anyone.• And the truly awful thing was, Alistair was right.• The awful thing was that, as I said it, I began to have serious doubts about it.• The awful thing was that it wasn't over, Jean knew that.

awful2 adverbadv [+adj/adverbadv]

VERY American EnglishAmE spoken very 非常

That kid’s awful cute, with her red curls.

那孩子一头红鬈发，十分可爱。

Examples from the Corpus

awful• an awful cute kid