Other forms: frights
A fright is a sudden feeling of fear. Short, sharp, and over almost at once.
The suddenness is what separates it from fear, since a fright arrives and passes while fear can last for years. English keeps it in fixed phrases: giving somebody a fright, getting a fright, and taking fright, which means being scared into running. There is a British expression looking a fright, which means looking a mess, and stage fright is the specific terror of performing.
1nounfrightA sudden feeling of fear.
“The bang gave her a real fright.”
Fright is one of the old words. Old English fyrhtu meant fear, dread, trembling and a horrible sight all at once, from a Proto-Indo-European root meaning simply to fear.
Proto-Indo-European
*pr̥k- — to fear
Proto-Germanic
*furhtį̄ — fear
Old English
fryhtu
Middle English
fright
English, today
fright
Built from
From Middle English fright, furht, from Old English fryhtu, fyrhto (“fright, fear, dread, trembling, horrible sight”), from Proto-Germanic furhtį̄ (“fear”), from Proto-Indo-European pr̥k- (“to fear”). Cognate with Scots fricht (“fright”), Old Frisian fruchte (“fright”), Low German frucht (“fright”), Middle Dutch vrucht, German Furcht (“fear, fright”), Danish frygt (“fear”), Swedish fruktan (“fear, fright, dread”), Gothic 𐍆𐌰𐌿𐍂𐌷𐍄𐌴𐌹 (“fear, horror, fright”). Compare possibly Albanian frikë (“fear, fright, dread, danger”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA