as in frightened
filled with fear or dread
horror-struck, the villagers watched helplessly as the tsunami hit the shore
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Example Sentences
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Recent Examples of horror-struck
For those of us who have spent the last 10 years horror-struck at the mass delusion that Trump is a great man rather than a singularly rapacious and volatile charlatan, Carlson’s words might seem cathartic.
—
Michelle Goldberg, Mercury News, 28 Apr. 2026
Other people were horror-struck by the verdicts in each of these cases, seeing them as a catastrophic failure of the American system of justice.
—Susan Shelley, Orange County Register, 31 May 2024
Michelle Goldberg, Mercury News, 28 Apr. 2026
Other people were horror-struck by the verdicts in each of these cases, seeing them as a catastrophic failure of the American system of justice.
—Susan Shelley, Orange County Register, 31 May 2024
Recent Examples of Synonyms for horror-struck
Adjective
-
The woman who found Nado said the feline appeared frightened but was in overall good health, according to the news outlet.—
Gina Kalsi,
PEOPLE,
8 May 2026
-
Those children hadn’t seemed frightened to me, not visibly anyway.—
Literary Hub,
Literary Hub,
1 May 2026
Adjective
-
The key cabin crew are flight attendants Penny (Lucy Barrett) and Zoe (Na Shi), both of whom demonstrate bravery, to different ends, and show caring attention to the terrified children.—
David Rooney,
HollywoodReporter,
28 Apr. 2026
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Though Ridley Scott works in a drastically different tone than the one John Carpenter brought to Dark Star, the two films share screenwriter Dan O’Bannon’s darkly comedic view of a future that has reduced humans to alternately bored and terrified cogs in larger machines.—
Keith Phipps,
Vulture,
23 Apr. 2026
Adjective
-
Umpires, afraid of being overturned, or at least, more aware of the new zone and its limitations, have been calling fewer strikes.—
Ian Miller OutKick,
FOXNews.com,
29 Apr. 2026
-
Almost half are personally afraid of losing their job to AI, ranking it among the most acute individual stressors measured in the survey.—
Jessica Guynn,
USA Today,
28 Apr. 2026
Adjective
-
And yet, locals weren't scared off, blinded perhaps by their love of the game.—
Lee Cowan,
CBS News,
3 May 2026
-
To him, the gathering in New York was a sign of change, that people are curious enough to give it another look, and not too scared of the potential backlash.—
Quanta Magazine,
Quanta Magazine,
29 Apr. 2026
Adjective
-
Let’s not confuse slightly horrified admiration for Irina’s determination with admiration for her as a person.—
Sophie Brookover,
Vulture,
24 Apr. 2026
-
As the scene was projected onto a screen, Jude seemed slightly horrified to see himself in front of the camera rather than behind it.—
Rebecca Mead,
New Yorker,
13 Apr. 2026
Adjective
-
The pair shared a sweet slideshow on Instagram in December 2023 that showed Wilson getting down on one knee in front of a Christmas tree to ask a shocked van der Pol to marry him.—
Brendan Le,
PEOPLE,
28 Apr. 2026
-
His death has left many shocked and outraged.—
Naveen Dhaliwal,
CBS News,
27 Apr. 2026
Adjective
-
Ramzan typed into his phone, trying not to feel alarmed by Adnan’s silence.—
Literary Hub,
Literary Hub,
4 May 2026
-
The lawsuit was updated as Kennedy took more steps that alarmed medical societies, causing the plaintiffs to ask Murphy to take steps to address those policy changes too.—
ABC News,
ABC News,
30 Apr. 2026
Adjective
-
My agent, Marty Diamond, had to face down a steady stream of ‘no’s from fearful artist reps.—
Michael Schneider,
Variety,
27 Apr. 2026
-
The question of whether Balzac’s fear was real is perhaps less interesting than the work the story does to position the fearful encounter as simply a symptom of innovation.—
Literary Hub,
Literary Hub,
27 Apr. 2026
Cite this Entry
“Horror-struck.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/horror-struck. Accessed 11 May. 2026.
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