恐怖

What it means

What does 恐怖 mean? 恐怖 (kyōfu) denotes an intense, often overwhelming feeling of fear or terror directed at a perceived threat, danger, or something that causes extreme unease; it describes both the emotional experience and the state of being terrified.

Main meanings

• 1. An acute, visceral reaction to immediate danger or threat, stronger than general worry.
• 2. A psychological state that can be described clinically when persistent and irrational (as in phobias).
• 3. A literary or cinematic tone—used to describe scenes, works, or atmospheres designed to frighten.
• 4. A figurative intensifier in expressions to convey dread or shock about events or possibilities.

How to use it

Used across spoken and written Japanese in formal and informal contexts: common in news and academic writing when describing acts that produce terror, in psychology to name conditions or symptoms, and in everyday speech when someone wants to stress strong fear; it appears in compound words and headlines, and can be used both as a noun referring to the feeling and attributively to describe situations that inspire it.