The Surprising Origin Of The Word 'Awful' Might Just Change How You Use It

The word has taken quite the journey from its original meaning.

Culture & Parenting Reporter, HuffPost

If someone called you “awful” today, you’d probably be offended. But travel back a few hundred years and that same word would have been high praise.

Awful has one of the more dramatic reversals in the English language. It began as something genuinely admiring and ended up as something quite negative in everyday use.

“The word ‘awful’ traces back to the Old English root ege, meaning dread, reverence or profound respect,” Sophie Vignoles, a linguist and head of learning content at the language learning app Babbel, told HuffPost. “That origin shows in its early use. It originally meant something that filled you with awe, describing anything that inspired wonder or terror, often tied to the power of God or nature, and it was a compliment. A mountain range or a storm could be called awful, and that was high praise.”

The word awful goes back to Old English, with experts pointing to a ninth-century citation attributed to Alfred the Great. The Oxford English Dictionary has many examples of “awful” in texts from the subsequent centuries – generally........

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