I went through the worst Ku Klux proposition in the country at the time it was at its height. And I had to go down to the Ku Klux meeting and tell them what I thought of them, and I wasn'tafraid of them at all. And I'm notafraid of this situation because I think it'll work out in a way that when these people sit down and get a chance to think and study the situation, they're going to be ashamed of some of the things they've done.
Afraid expresses a lesser degree of fear thanterrified orfrightened. It is often followed by the prepositionof and the object of fear, or by an infinitive, or by a dependent clause, as shown in the examples above.
worried about, feeling concern for, fearing for—seefear
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions atWiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
^McDavid, Raven Ioor Jr. (1966), “59. Review of Thomas 1958 and Bronstein 1960:An Introduction to the Phonetics of American English, 2nd Edition,The Pronunciation of American English: An Introduction to Phonetics”, in William A. Kretzschmar, Jr., editor,Dialects in culture: essays in general dialectology[1],University, Alabama:The University of Alabama Press, published1979,→ISBN,→OCLC,page382.
c.1500, Ieuan Tew, poem in Cwrt Mawr manuscript no. 5, published and translated 1921 by T. Gwynn Jones, “Cultural Bases. A Study of the Tudor Period in Wales”,Y Cymmrodor. The Magazine of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion, vol. 31,page 182:
mogelwch yma golyn a fo goeg, ag afu gwyn— a choegddyn crin, ledryn crach, o fradwr—nidafreidiach;
beware of the sting of white-livered wretches, and every withered, niggardly wretch of a traitor—it were not less necessary;
c.1600, Edmwnd Prys, quoted inA Welsh Grammar, Historical and Comparative by J. Morris Jones, Oxford: 1913,p. 44:
Amlwg fydd trŵyn a’r wyneb; Afraid i ni nodi neb.
Plain is the nose on a face; it is unnecessary for us to mention anyone.
R. J. Thomas, G. A. Bevan, P. J. Donovan, A. Hawke et al., editors (1950–present), “afraid”, inGeiriadur Prifysgol Cymru Online (in Welsh), University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh & Celtic Studies
