Etymology

fearsome

fear·some
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Today it means: Frightening, especially in appearance. Full definition →

Proto-Germanic *samaz ← Proto-Indo-European *somHós ← English fear
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The story

  1. Englishfear
  2. Proto-Indo-European*sem-
  3. Proto-Indo-European*somHós
  4. Proto-Germanic*samaz
  5. English todayfearsome

From fear + -some. Compare German furchtsam (“fearful”, obsolete also “fearsome”); this is more closely equivalent to English frightsome, however.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.