Meaning

noun fearful expectation or anticipation

verb be afraid or scared of; be frightened of

adjective causing fear or dread or terror

originFrom Middle English dreden, from Old English drǣdan (“to fear, dread”), aphetic form of ondrǣdan (“to fear, dread”), from Proto-West Germanic *andarādan, equivalent to Old English and- + rǣdan (whence read); corresponding to an aphesis of earlier adread. Akin to Old Saxon antdrādan, andrādan (“to fear, dread”), Old High German intrātan (“to fear”), Middle High German entrāten (“to fear, dread,…

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0