Library / English Dictionary

AWE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (noun) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

An overwhelming feeling of wonder or admiration

Example:

he stared over the edge with a feeling of awe

Classified under:

Nouns denoting feelings and emotions

Hypernyms ("awe" is a kind of...):

admiration; wonder; wonderment (the feeling aroused by something strange and surprising)

Derivation:

awe (inspire awe in)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A feeling of profound respect for someone or something

Example:

his respect for the law bordered on veneration

Synonyms:

awe; fear; reverence; veneration

Classified under:

Nouns denoting feelings and emotions

Hypernyms ("awe" is a kind of...):

emotion (any strong feeling)

 II. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Inspire awe in

Example:

The famous professor awed the undergraduates

Classified under:

Verbs of feeling

Hypernyms (to "awe" is one way to...):

affright; fright; frighten; scare (cause fear in)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "awe"):

cow; overawe (subdue, restrain, or overcome by affecting with a feeling of awe; frighten (as with threats))

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s somebody

Sentence examples:

Sam cannot awe Sue

The performance is likely to awe Sue

Derivation:

awe (an overwhelming feeling of wonder or admiration)

Credits

 Context examples: 

He is taller by almost the breadth of my nail, than any of his court; which alone is enough to strike an awe into the beholders.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

White Fang's was a service of duty and awe, but not of love.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

"I don't see how you dared to do it," said Beth in a tone of awe.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

Earnestness is ever deeply solemn: first, as I listened to that prayer, I wondered at his; then, when it continued and rose, I was touched by it, and at last awed.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

The two girls were more at a loss from being younger and in greater awe of their father, who addressed them on the occasion with rather an injudicious particularity.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

In the high-arched passage, paved with stone, which already she had trodden with peculiar awe, she well remembered the doors of which the general had given no account.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

I only fear that the sort of cautiousness to which you, I imagine, have been alluding, is merely adopted on his visits to his aunt, of whose good opinion and judgement he stands much in awe.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

And besides the operation of this, as a general principle, you may be sure that Miss Fairfax awes Mrs. Elton by her superiority both of mind and manner; and that, face to face, Mrs. Elton treats her with all the respect which she has a claim to.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

All this I shall some day write at fuller length, and amidst these more stirring days I would tenderly sketch in these lovely summer evenings, when with the deep blue sky above us we lay in good comradeship among the long grasses by the wood and marveled at the strange fowl that swept over us and the quaint new creatures which crept from their burrows to watch us, while above us the boughs of the bushes were heavy with luscious fruit, and below us strange and lovely flowers peeped at us from among the herbage; or those long moonlit nights when we lay out upon the shimmering surface of the great lake and watched with wonder and awe the huge circles rippling out from the sudden splash of some fantastic monster; or the greenish gleam, far down in the deep water, of some strange creature upon the confines of darkness.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

It was no wonder that the coastguard was surprised, or even awed, for not often can such a sight have been seen.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)