Afraid means feeling fear and wanting to hide or run away. Afraid of the dark.
It goes after the verb, so you can be afraid but not an afraid person. I am afraid so is a polite way of delivering bad news and has nothing to do with fear.
1adjectiveafraidFeeling fear; wanting to hide or run away.
“He was afraid of nothing except the telephone.”
afraid is a state.
Also accepted in games: scared, frightened
From affray, to break someone's peace, from Old French esfreer. To be afraid is to have had your peace taken from you.
Proto-Indo-European
*preyH-
Proto-Germanic
*friþuz — peace
Frankish
*friþu — security, peace
Old French
effreer
Anglo-Norman
afrayer — to terrify, disquiet, disturb
Middle English
affrayed
English, today
afraid
Built from
From Middle English affrayed, affraied, past participle of afraien (“to affray”), from Anglo-Norman afrayer (“to terrify, disquiet, disturb”), from Old French effreer, esfreer (“to disturb, remove the peace from”), from es + freer, from Frankish friþu (“security, peace”), from Proto-Germanic friþuz (“peace”), from Proto-Germanic frijōną (“to free; to love”), from Proto-Indo-European prāy-, prēy- (“to like, love”). by surface analysis, affray + -ed. Compare also afeard. More at free, friend.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA