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形容词afraid表示表现出恐惧。在单独使用时，它不表示特定程度的恐惧。【He's afraid of dogs,even of puppies; We are afraid to walk in the park at night since the woman jogger was attacked there.】在多数用法中，being afraid是个人的，且恐惧与身体的伤害有关。Afraid也用于礼貌的谈话中，仅仅用来表示轻微的担忧：I'm afraid I'm a bit late for my appointment.有时候这种用法隐藏着巨大的恐惧：If our present policy is continued, I'am afraid that war is inevitable. Frightened 和scared通常表示对身体伤害的恐惧，都可以用来形容不明来源的模糊的恐惧。【when the lights went out I became scared; They are always frightened when their parents are not at home.】frightened 听起来比scared更文雅一点，但是都严格地适用于身体上感到的恐惧，即便恐惧的原因是情绪上的或想象中的。 Anxious表示紧张和担忧。Fearful可以表示完全的恐怖或恐惧，但更多情况仅仅是指apprehensive,也就是预期的危险，失败或麻烦。在后一种意思里，fearful与anxious都表示更多由内在的关切带来的担忧，而非外在的情况，并且在这种担忧中，也许还有不合理的成份存在。apprehensive 指意识到由环境导致的危险即将临近，而并不太依赖于个人的性格或习惯性思维状态。【They are anxious about their daughter's being out so late at night; The playwright was fearful that her first opening would be a failure; an investor who was apprehensive about his holdings during the recession; We are frankly fearful of another depression unless the economy improves radically in the next few months.】 Aghast, alarmed和terror-stricken都是很强烈的恐惧感或害怕感。Aghast表示afraid或frightened到了震惊的程度。一对在起火的房子里醒来的夫妇在想到他们的孩子处于巨大的危险中时会aghast. Alarmed表示突然和急剧的afraid或frightened。父母会对社区里突然爆发的肺结核感到alarmed。Terror-stricken是这组词里最强烈的形容词，它表示如些强烈的恐惧以致于正常的反应被抑制了。一个terror-stricken的溺水的人可能会陷入恐慌中而抗拒试图救他的人的帮助。 反义词：audacious（无畏的）,brave, calm,confident,unafraid.
翻译自《choose the right word》 |
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