awe

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   an overwhelming feeling of wonder or admiration

   I stared over the edge of the Empire State Building with a feeling of awe.

2. 2
   verb

   to inspire awe in

   The famous professor awed the undergraduates.

3. 3
   noun

   A feeling of fear and reverence.

   Last spring, the periodical cicadas emerged across eastern North America. Their vast numbers and short above-ground life spans inspired awe and irritation in humans—and made for good meals for birds and small mammals.

4. 4
   noun

   A feeling of amazement.

   For several minutes no one spoke; I think they must each have been as overcome by awe as was I. All about us was a flora and fauna as strange and wonderful to us as might have been those upon a distant planet had we suddenly been miraculously transported through ether to an unknown world.

5. 5
   verb

   To inspire fear and reverence in.

   That large room had always awed Ivor: even as a child he had never wanted to play in it, for all that it was so limitless, the parquet floor so vast and shiny and unencumbered, the windows so wide and light with the fairy expanse of Kensington Gardens.

6. 6
   verb

   To control by inspiring dread.

   While a sense of outrage is the only rational response to atrocity, if that outrage is maintained at too high a level over too long a time it can generate feelings of impotence, as we permit ourselves to be awed by this irrational act of violence.

7. 7
   name

   A short river between Loch Awe and Loch Etive, Argyll and Bute council area, Scotland; in full, the River Awe.

   For nearly four miles, between Loch Awe and Taynuilt, the Callander and Oban section of the L.M.S.R. runs through the Pass of Brander, on the lower slopes of Ben Cruachan, beside the swift-flowing River Awe.

8. 8
   noun

   a feeling of profound respect for someone or something

Etymology

From Middle English aw, awe, agh, awȝe, borrowed from Old Norse agi, from Proto-Germanic *agaz (“terror, dread”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂egʰ- (“to be upset, afraid”). Displaced native Middle English eye, eyȝe, ayȝe, eȝȝe, from Old English ege, æge (“fear, terror, dread”), from the same Proto-Germanic root.