dread vs horror

dread

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

  • A Rastafarian. 

  • Somebody or something dreaded. 

  • Reverential or respectful fear; awe. 

verb
  • To be in dread, or great fear. 

  • To style (the hair) into dreadlocks. 

  • To fear greatly. 

  • To anticipate with fear. 

adj
  • Terrible; greatly feared; dreaded. 

horror

noun
  • An intense distressing emotion of fear or repugnance. 

  • A genre of fiction designed to evoke a feeling of fear and suspense. 

  • An individual work in this genre. 

  • Delirium tremens. 

  • A nasty or ill-behaved person; a rascal or terror. 

  • Intense dislike or aversion; an abhorrence. 

  • Something horrible; that which excites horror. 

  • An intense anxiety or a nervous depression; often the horrors. 

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