dreadful vs shocking

dreadful

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

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

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. 

adv
  • Dreadfully. 

shocking

adj
  • Extremely bad. 

  • Inspiring shock; startling. 

  • Unusually obscene or lewd. 

noun
  • The application of an electric shock. 

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