Aw″ful (�), a. 1. Oppressing with fear or horror; appalling; terrible; as, an awful scene. “The hour of Nature's awful throes.” Hemans.
2. Inspiring awe; filling with profound reverence, or with fear and admiration; fitted to inspire reverential fear; profoundly impressive.
Heaven's awful Monarch.
Milton.
3. Struck or filled with awe; terror-stricken.
A weak and awful reverence for antiquity.
I. Watts.
4. Worshipful; reverential; law-abiding.
Thrust from the company of awful men.
Shak.
5. Frightful; exceedingly bad; great; — applied intensively; as, an awful bonnet; an awful boaster.
Syn. — See Frightful.