adjective
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
a bad/terrible/dreadful etc mistake
▪
It would be a terrible mistake to marry him.
a terrible/dreadful etc flirt (= someone who flirts a lot )
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She’s an incorrigible flirt!
a terrible/dreadful ordeal
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The trial was a dreadful ordeal.
appalling/dreadful conditions (= very bad )
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Some of the animals were being kept in appalling conditions.
awful/dreadful/terrible weather
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We came home early because of the awful weather.
the awful/terrible/dreadful etc truth
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She could not bring herself to tell them the awful truth.
too dreadful/horrifying etc to contemplate
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The thought that she might be dead was too terrible to contemplate.
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADVERB
how
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No one told me how dreadful you can feel.
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The old woman talked before she died and said she loved me like a daughter. How dreadful everything is!
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She started on Adam for taking up that shameful suggestion about selling what she called the family silver. How dreadful !
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To such groups, the storyline showed the audience how dreadful the law was.
most
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Broussac and Capote refused to read the signs and so made their most dreadful mistake.
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That year was most dreadful and cruel for mankind over all the earth.
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Or with the most dreadful infrequency and when I least expected him to show himself?
so
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And in any case, what Lucy may have done was surely not so dreadful and will be soon forgotten.
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Perhaps in no other political career is defeat at the polls so dreadful .
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He looked so dreadful she went to him, knelt, put her hand on his.
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Moreover, were things quite so dreadful that such control needed to be exerted?
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It was all so dreadful , but I don't really remember it now.
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What was so dreadful that you couldn't tell me?
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If he did not feel so dreadful , Harry would tell the fellow just what he could do with his bedside wit.
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Why is London's Underground so dreadful ?.
too
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Constanza did ask, Anna simply repeated, Something too dreadful to speak about.
■ NOUN
mistake
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He soon realized he had made a dreadful mistake .
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We acknowledge that there have been dreadful mistakes and inexcusable mistreatment in the past, but we have learned from them.
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One look was sufficient to make them realise they had made a dreadful mistake .
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Perhaps he had made a dreadful mistake after all.
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Despite his firm statement on the beach, Laura knew that this was all a dreadful mistake .
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Broussac and Capote refused to read the signs and so made their most dreadful mistake .
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She admitted she had made a dreadful mistake and appealed for a reconciliation.
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Now under house arrest, she says it's all a dreadful mistake .
place
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A dreadful place , this Passage.
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You may still be a child but you are the only person in this dreadful place who understands the meaning of care.
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She should never have shut herself away in that dreadful place .
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But there was some one at least in that dreadful place who had a thought for others besides himself.
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She was alone in this dreadful place after all.
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Could she come to terms with the knowledge that they had been conceived in that dreadful place ?
thing
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A move is a dreadful thing .
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Being mindful of the dreadful things that can happen to them and having to live with that.
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I can't sleep at nights from thinking of those dreadful things you describe.
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What had finally driven him to do this dreadful thing ?
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The dreadful things that he forecasts will not happen.
things
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I can't sleep at nights from thinking of those dreadful things you describe.
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Being mindful of the dreadful things that can happen to them and having to live with that.
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The dreadful things that he forecasts will not happen.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
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"How did you like the film?'' "I thought it was dreadful .''
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The coffee tasted dreadful !
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Young made two dreadful mistakes.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
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Ah, it's dreadful , sometimes.
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And in any case, what Lucy may have done was surely not so dreadful and will be soon forgotten.
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In a medical centre they found dreadful cases of malnutrition, scabies and diarrhoea.
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Sleazy and tedious, the film would need to improve a few rungs to be classified as merely dreadful .
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The doctor wouldn't allow sedatives, or painkillers when he had those dreadful headaches.
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The Reformers might be followers of Erasmus; but they had no hesitation in drowning the dreadful Anabaptists.
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Then she had the dreadful feeling that he was not going to answer her anyway, for he said nothing.