Emily Dickinson Lexicon

FORM'I-DA-BLE, a. [L. formidabilis, from formido, fear.]

Exciting fear or apprehension; impressing dread; adapted to excite fear and deter from approach, encounter or undertaking. It expresses less than terrible, terrific, tremendous, horrible, and frightful. They seemed to fear the formidable sight. Dryden. I swell my preface into a volume, and make it formidable, when you see so many pages behind. Dryden.