dread vs dreadful

dread

adj
  • Terrible; greatly feared; dreaded. 

verb
  • To be in dread, or great fear. 

  • To style (the hair) into dreadlocks. 

  • To fear greatly. 

  • To anticipate with fear. 

noun
  • A Rastafarian. 

  • Great fear in view of impending evil; fearful apprehension of danger; anticipatory terror. 

  • Somebody or something dreaded. 

  • Reverential or respectful fear; awe. 

dreadful

adj
  • Genuinely horrific, awful, or alarming; dangerous, risky. 

  • Unpleasant, awful, very bad (also used as an intensifier). 

adv
  • Dreadfully. 

noun
  • A shocking or sensational crime. 

  • A journal or broadsheet printing such reports. 

  • A shocker: a report of a crime written in a provokingly lurid style. 

How often have the words dread and dreadful occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )