dreadful vs ominous

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. 

ominous

adj
  • Specifically, giving indication of a coming ill; being an evil omen 

  • Of or pertaining to an omen or to omens; being or exhibiting an omen; significant. 

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