AWE • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Awe

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/ɑ/ /ɔ/ Listen

noun

Awe n.

Dread; great fear mingled with respect. (Obs. or Obsolescent) "His frown was full of terror, and his voice Shook the delinquent with such fits of awe."

The emotion inspired by something dreadful and sublime; an undefined sense of the dreadful and the sublime; reverential fear, or solemn wonder; profound reverence. "There is an awe in mortals' joy, A deep mysterious fear." "To tame the pride of that power which held the Continent in awe." "The solitude of the desert, or the loftiness of the mountain, may fill the mind with awe the sense of our own littleness in some greater presence or power."

To stand in awe of, to fear greatly; to reverence profoundly.

Synonyms: See Reverence.

verb

Awe v. t. (past & past part. awed; pres. part. awing) To strike with fear and reverence; to inspire with awe; to control by inspiring dread. "That same eye whose bend doth awe the world." "His solemn and pathetic exhortation awed and melted the bystanders."

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Etymology of 'Awe'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Awe" Quotes from Famous Books

... were but gewgaws compared with the eternal glories of the other life. A curse lay, he thought, on all things that came to him from this source. He sounded dark depths of painful thought as he listened to the service performed for Melmoth. The Dies irae filled him with awe; he felt all the grandeur of that cry of a repentant soul trembling before the Throne of God. The Holy Spirit, like a devouring flame, passed through ...

— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne

... sat in the gallery watching it, his eyes glistening, his soul stirred to awe. Long since had he ceased regretting the glittering tinsel of the cities of his recollection; they seemed artificial, unreal. When he had first gazed out over the basin he had been oppressed with a sensation of uneasiness. ...

— The Coming of the Law • Charles Alden Seltzer

... shall write their history." Then he would stare at you, for he would fear that you might be a spy sent by the king with the sole object of learning the plans of his most dangerous enemy—one of those spies of whom he has been so much in awe that for twenty years no one has known where he slept, where he ate, where he hid when the shutters of his shop in the Rue Borgognona were closed. He expected, on account of his past, and his secret manner, to be arrested at the time of the outrage of Passanante as one ...

— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget

... possibly the ministry, is regarded with greater deference than the medical profession. Our ancestors listened with awe and obedience to the warnings and behests of the medicine man, bloodletter, bonesetter, family doctor. In modern times doctors have disagreed with each other often enough to warrant laymen in questioning the infallibility of any individual healer or any sect, whether homeopath, allopath, ...

— Civics and Health • William H. Allen

... Gertrude, and Gertrude looked at Janet; but though there was great seriousness and awe in their faces, there was no fear. Gertrude had gone through so much already within the walls of her home that she had no fear greater than that of remaining in helpless idleness there, alone with her own thoughts and ...

— The Sign Of The Red Cross • Evelyn Everett-Green

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