afeard

comparative more afeard · superlative most afeard · alternative afeared · alternative affeard · alternative affeared

1. archaicdialectalAfraid.

   He's afeard of you, Luke. Don't you know that?

   2009, John Hough, Jr., Seen the Glory (Fiction), Simon and Schuster, →ISBN, page 192

   3 more examples

   Pray you pass with your best violence; I am afeard you make a wanton of me.

   c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene ii]

   So, afeard that the like might happin agin, he med a grab at the Leprechaun, an' cotch him up in his hand, but in his hurry he ovirset the pitcher, and spilt all the beer, so that he couldn't git a taste uv it to tell what sort it was.

   1850, Thomas Keightley, The Fairy Mythology, London: H.G. Bohn, page 375

   I feel as if something’s behind me all the time; and I’m afeard to turn around, becuz maybe there’s others in front a-waiting for a chance.

   1876, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], chapter XXV, in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Hartford, Conn.: The American Publishing Company, →OCLC, page 197