Even though dictionaries say that terrific can be used to describe something that causes terror, we are more likely to encounter it meaning the exact opposite, something great, fabulous, fantastic. The same thing seems to have happened with Romanian grozav, of Slavic origin (cf. Russian грозный, Czech hrozný, Polish groźny, all meaning horrible or menacing, threatening). Grozav means terrible but also terrific, splendid and other complimentary attributes in modern Romanian.
More on terrific meaning terrible here.
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1 comment:
Any relation to Grozny, the capital city of Chechenia?
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