Meaning

noun an emotion experienced in anticipation of some specific pain or danger (usually accompanied by a desire to flee or fight)

verb cause fear in

originFrom Middle English fright, furht, from Old English fryhtu, fyrhto (“fright, fear, dread, trembling, horrible sight”), from Proto-Germanic *furhtį̄ (“fear”), from Proto-Indo-European *pr̥k- (“to fear”). Cognate with Scots fricht (“fright”), Old Frisian fruchte (“fright”), Low German frucht (“fright”), Middle Dutch vrucht, German Furcht (“fear, fright”), Danish frygt (“fear”), Swedish fruktan…

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0