Meaning & use

awful

adjective·Everyday

Extremely unpleasant, bad, or of very poor quality.

See it in a sentence

The weather was awful all weekend, so we stayed indoors and watched movies.

I still feel awful about completely forgetting your birthday yesterday.

A note on using this word

Also used informally as an intensifier before another adjective, as in 'an awful lot of money.'

Words with a similar meaning

Choose a synonym to suit the sentence. Meanings can overlap without being identical.

Words with an opposite meaning

wonderfulexcellent

Make it your own

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