Dictionary

formidability en · NOUN

Etymology

From Latin formīdō (“to fear, dread”) + -ability.

Meanings

1. (uncountable, usually) The state of being formidable.
   • As Damien Hirst’s diamond-encrusted platinum skull has recently indicated, Death’s formidability often encourages extravagance. Mr. Fabre covers a skull in brilliantly colored beetle shells; Mr. Van Oost casts one in silver (with a hand poking its eyes out). 2007 October 10, Roberta Smith, “Going the Way of All Flesh, Artistically”, in New York Times:
   • A Mackintosh has been taken, who reduces their formidability, by being sent to raise two clans, and with orders, if they would not rise, at least to give out they had risen, for that three clans would leave the Pretender, unless joined by those two. 1890, Horace Walpole, Letters of Horace Walpole:

Forms