How to Use dreadful in a Sentence

dreadful

1 of 2 adjective
  • And that sounds like a dreadful way to live, friend.
    — Kristen Arnett, Literary Hub, 7 May 2026
  • Plus, a three-week road trip sounds dreadful.
    — Pete Grathoff, Kansas City Star, 26 Aug. 2025
  • As just discussed, the AL is dreadful.
    — Chandler Rome, New York Times, 25 May 2026
  • Text wraps around you like a dreadful whisper, with an eye to suffocate.
    — Brittany Allen, Literary Hub, 18 May 2026
  • Friday was pretty darn dreadful for the Chiefs.
    — Pete Grathoff, Kansas City Star, 16 Aug. 2025
  • Unpacking wet and muddy gear at the end is always the most dreadful part of the whole trip.
    — Olivia Young, Travel + Leisure, 9 Apr. 2026
  • Li’s life has been marked by dreadful tragedy, the loss of both her sons to suicide, which would destroy many mothers.
    — Salman Rushdie, Time, 15 Apr. 2026
  • Yet the Kings have had dreadful starts in each of the three dates on this seven-game homestand.
    — Andrew Knoll, Daily News, 3 Apr. 2026
  • Wells’ surprise diagnosis came with him in the midst of a dreadful season.
    — Gary Phillips, New York Daily News, 8 June 2026
  • To get past this dreadful moment, more and more Americans are going to have to face a painful fact.
    — David French, Mercury News, 17 Sep. 2025
  • No, not because of the Rockies’ dreadful season.
    — Patrick Saunders, Denver Post, 14 Sep. 2025
  • Things haven't gotten any better for the Packers in the playoffs since that dreadful day.
    — Rob Reischel, Forbes.com, 18 Jan. 2026
  • Even now, this is the derby’s beautiful, dreadful power.
    — George Caulkin, New York Times, 20 Mar. 2026
  • After all, if teams are shooting a dreadful percentage from deep against you, that tends to even out over the course of a season.
    — Fred Katz, New York Times, 9 Jan. 2026
  • No need to watch the dreadful first film to prepare (although clips are, of course, easy to dredge up on YouTube).
    — Amy Nicholson, Los Angeles Times, 9 Apr. 2026
  • Just like that, the Mets bats are alive after looking dead during a dreadful 12-game skid months ago.
    — Fiifi Frimpong, New York Daily News, 14 May 2026
  • It’s been a dreadful first week of 2026 for the local hackerama.
    — Howie Carr, Boston Herald, 9 Jan. 2026
  • The right pieces, however, can truly make getting dressed in the heat feel effortless and not so dreadful.
    — Alicia Geigel, Southern Living, 24 June 2026
  • The Pats were a dreadful 4-13 each of the previous two seasons.
    — Greg Cote january 26, Miami Herald, 26 Jan. 2026
  • On a night where West Ham were dreadful, Leeds were not, and did not need to be, firing on all cylinders.
    — Beren Cross, New York Times, 25 Oct. 2025
  • But vengeance demons don’t grant wishes to be helpful and Cordelia soon realizes she’s made a dreadful mistake.
    — ArsTechnica, 7 June 2026
  • Bondi was a dreadful choice as the country’s chief law enforcement officer.
    — Steve Bousquet, Sun Sentinel, 4 Apr. 2026
  • The stock market’s run to all-time highs after a dreadful spring sell-off has many on the Street feeling good about equities.
    — Fred Imbert, CNBC, 19 Aug. 2025
  • Snakes and scorpions would often find their way in, making for an even more dreadful experience.
    — Paige Moore, AZCentral.com, 3 Oct. 2025
  • Like other Roald Dahl books, this one has its share of dreadful characters – this time two of them are front and center.
    — Melanie Goodfellow, Deadline, 5 Aug. 2025
  • The Miami Dolphins' season is off to a dreadful start.
    — Andrew Wright, MSNBC Newsweek, 19 Sep. 2025
  • Like other Roald Dahl books, this one has its share of dreadful characters – this time, two of them are front and center.
    — Larisha Paul, Rolling Stone, 5 Aug. 2025
  • Arsenal, with their glass-half-full mentality, might think that dreadful sequence has to come to an end sometime.
    — Stuart James, New York Times, 9 Feb. 2026
  • To take three thousand pounds from the fortune of their dear little boy would be impoverishing him to the most dreadful degree.
    — Literary Hub, 16 Mar. 2026
  • But there hasn’t been much to remind you that sometimes the sport can be completely bonkers in a way that can favor a team having a dreadful season.
    — Grant Brisbee, New York Times, 11 June 2026

dreadful

2 of 2 noun
  • The comical bumps up against the chaotic, the domestic beats back the dreadful.
    — Ed Stockly, Los Angeles Times, 24 Aug. 2022
  • The Rangers just completed their fourth consecutive losing season and packed a whole lot of dreadful into just 60 games.
    — Evan Grant, Dallas News, 30 Sep. 2020
  • Like many people who live in the suburbs, there’s no burning desire to get back on a bus or train and waste two to three hours going back and forth in a dreadful, soul-sucking commute to the city every day.
    — Jack Kelly, Forbes, 13 Apr. 2022
  • But the Blazers minus Anfernee Simons in the lineup are next-level dreadful.
    — oregonlive, 7 Mar. 2022
  • For many people who live in the suburbs, there’s no burning desire to get back on a bus or train and waste two to three hours going back and forth in a dreadful, soul-sucking commute to the city each and every day.
    — Jack Kelly, Forbes, 22 May 2021
  • Penny dreadfuls, as McMurtry and Fowler note, were developed to cater to a specific youth audience.
    — Encyclopedia Britannica, 8 June 2026
  • Only blue shells in Mario Kart games produce more pained utterances of swear words amongst users of interactive software than that dreadful, infuriating wiggle mode.
    — Samuel Axon, Ars Technica, 28 Sep. 2020

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'dreadful.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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