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How To Use Awful In A Sentence

  • This patronising voice with a whine and an awful regional accent was talking. Times, Sunday Times
  • by lawful/legal means. Lawful tends to be used in technical or literary contexts. The same is true of the opposites, unlawful and illegal, but illegal is used especially about criminal activities. Legal also means 'connected with the law':the US legal system.
  • It seems the awful practice of hazing is not just limited to college sororities and fraternities.
  • The Latin American brotherhood was a pretty awful in general, coming out of some deranged ideas of Simon Bolivar, and it was an extraordinarily awful thing during the Cold War. Matthew Yglesias » Carter on Gaza
  • The police had a good defence to the claims in false imprisonment and unlawful detention. Times, Sunday Times
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  • ‘You took a pre-meditated, calculated and awful revenge,’ the judge told him.
  • The convention allows for lawful detention of children for the shortest possible period of time and as a matter of last resort.
  • I thought my deathly pale face made me look awful. The Sun
  • The thing the article doesn't mention in much detail, presumably because the writer isn't diabetic, is how awful hyperglycemia (high blood sugar) feels. SeeLight:
  • The whole downstairs of the house smelled something awful for two weeks.
  • The court martial highlighted confusion among high-ranking military officers about whether conditioning was lawful or not.
  • That's an awful book.
  • Courts may punish the unlawful party indirectly by refusing to protect the void civil-law acts.
  • Little protest as to unlawful detention, the necessity of charges, et cetera. THE LAST RAVEN
  • Bosnia are not simply in Brazil to elicit sympathy or provide romance, and they score an awful lot of goals. Times, Sunday Times
  • The Crown case was that the lawful activity which they had intentionally disrupted was retail selling. Times, Sunday Times
  • "I'm a vegan and I looked awfully skinny at one point, " she explains.
  • I am so utterly embarassed to call myself an american with this awful congress and president we have, I mean seriously this is like amatuer night at the oasis! Senate vote to kick off Wall Street reform push
  • Or the complete opposite - you table an awful dummy and partner makes an overtrick. Times, Sunday Times
  • Before military action can lawfully be undertaken against Iraq, the security council must have indicated its clearly expressed assent.
  • And I stand here to-day, sir, to say that with an exception, of which I shall soon speak, _to procure such a lawful investigation of the authority under which they claimed to act, was the part I took in that day's proceedings, and the only part_. Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of Slavery to the Present Time
  • People belittle the victim, which is awful. Times, Sunday Times
  • The giggles ceased, mainly because Jocelyn at this awful ultimatum also ceased to waggle her ears. CHALLENGE FOR THE CHALET SCHOOL
  • The jury delivered a verdict of unlawful killing.
  • His conceit and awful orange hair will carry on enthralling a worldwide audience.
  • The first meal was awful - a meat course followed by a second meat course. Times, Sunday Times
  • But now that our president, on behalf of America, has repudiated that awful man, now that Obama's here to set right America's wrongs, al-Qaida will have no reason as it *has* had to attack... but it's gonna take a while for that message to get through to them. "Americans do not bow to royalty. In my view, when the royal is the ruling tyrant of a despotic regime, the wrong is compounded."
  • Bunbury was staring in awful fascination at Windrush, who opened his mouth to wreck the entire con - hook, line and sinker. THE FIVE MILLION DOLLAR PRINCE
  • Barker subjected his victim to awful abuse.
  • Some examples of words ending in -ful that have no forms in -less are awful, bashful and deceitful.
  • Having twirled in a frock, he dons jackboots to play Adolf Hitler in Springtime for Hitler, the production's howlingly awful play-within-a-play.
  • There's an awful lot of work for a stay-at-home mom to do. Christianity Today
  • v before my name awfully small; but anyone who knows can see it. A Young Girl's Diary
  • There's an awful lot of research that's required still in order to optimise the process.
  • Full of comments about how awful our heavy rucksacks had been. Times, Sunday Times
  • If he's so awful, why don't you just dump him?
  • But since there's nothing at all wrong with the statute that requires him to perform the ministerial task he has so far petulantly avoided, and because his malfeasance has been used to aggrieve the lawfully appointed Burris, White should be harshly condemned at the very least. Jeff Norman: Victory For Blago and Burris is Imminent
  • It's that time of year in the northern hemisphere, the nights are drawing in, the clocks going back, and the weather is wet and awful.
  • I wrote two awful essays and was lucky to scrape through the exam.
  • According to the sailor, any animal, whatever it was, would be a lawful prize, and the rodents or carnivora which might get into the new snares would be well received at Granite House. The Mysterious Island
  • There is no requirement that the act of greater evil should be unlawful, nor that it take place within the jurisdiction.
  • Of labor added evil spirit to provide lawful sex basis for capitalist society.
  • The short version is that her parents were nutcases who treated her awfully; she ‘freaked out’ at age 11, ending up in a mental hospital.
  • An awful lot of your money being used to shore up Bank of America.
  • Too many of the conjunctions and alignments here are so awful that one hopes they are very temporary indeed.
  • But an awful lot of preverbal emotional signaling and interactions are going on in the first two years of life, which lay the groundwork and the foundation for language.
  • I rewrote it several years ago and when I went back to it, it had this really didactic preachy ending and it was just awful.
  • Yes, it's our fault in a certain measure that Billy is the awful "duffer" he is. Parkhurst Boys And Other Stories of School Life
  • Patients went hungry and thirsty and without medication and there was a lot of awful bullying of patients and relatives going on. The Sun
  • There is an awful lot of talk about teenage rebellion. Working with Teenagers
  • She teaches how to continue with discretion what is thoughtlessly undertaken; she inclines the mind to cleave steadfastly to what was imposed upon it by authority; and imparts to a choice which, though rash at the time, is now irrevocable, all the sanctity, all the advisedness, and, let us say it boldly, all the cheerfulness of a lawful calling. Chapter X
  • This mouse is a huge improvement to that awful ball thing that Apple used to have. Apple's new Magic Mouse: Abracadabra? | EW.com
  • He's got the groove going and he paces his compilations like an expert DJ, but his blips and bleeps sound awfully derivative.
  • His treatment was awful and he had no idea how to adapt a book. Times, Sunday Times
  • Had an awful headache, the back is still sore, but most the other achiness has gone away.
  • Is there a huge problem with renegade owners unlawfully springing their offending dogs from the doggy jail?
  • This is awfully sad but they say that twins are very close. Times, Sunday Times
  • But there's something awfully deriative about them, a mish-mash of cubism, constructivism, futurism, vorticism, Merz and more.
  • This bandy-legged, sawed-off little rat racer is awfully interesting in its own right. Fanboys in Flight: Subaru Roars In on a Wing
  • But there's an awful lot more to the Exeter scrum than the prop forward. Times, Sunday Times
  • He wrote letters to congressmen telling them that something awful and ‘bloody’ had occurred.
  • He proposed she become his lawfully wedded wife.
  • The lightness of heart which had dressed them in masquerade habits, had decorated their tents, and assembled them in fantastic groups, appeared a sin against, and a provocative to, the awful destiny that had laid its palsying hand upon hope and life. II.6
  • These have been relatively benign and do not suggest any awful shocks to come. Times, Sunday Times
  • It feels like a hangover, kind of buzzy and awful. 4/15/02 I had a tooth
  • by lawful/legal means. Lawful tends to be used in technical or literary contexts. The same is true of the opposites, unlawful and illegal, but illegal is used especially about criminal activities. Legal also means 'connected with the law':the US legal system.
  • I only ever got one truly awful grade on a paper, and man, did I deserve it.
  • You've got an awful katzenjammer from the Stokes 'dinner, and all you men ought to be horsewhipped for letting yourselves in for such a party. The Heart of Rachael
  • Our recent form has been awful, we've had a loss of form and a loss of confidence.
  • Great stuff is interspersed with awful, stupid stuff on a bathroom wall.
  • Donation of a reliquiae or an organ should be an independent lawful decision and not be treated as a common gift.
  • The morning after the awful tragedy flowers and cuddly toys were left outside the house by people who did not know the family personally.
  • It was groaning and squealing, and making an awful racket.
  • There's an awful smell in here.
  • As it was evident that the dhow was a lawful trader, Rhymer apologised to the captain, and stepping into his boat pulled for the shore, while the dhow sailed on her course. Ned Garth Made Prisoner in Africa. A Tale of the Slave Trade
  • On top of which the actress is awful, unwatchable, the most slovenly girl to appear on the screen in a long, long time.
  • She recorded a verdict of unlawful killing. Times, Sunday Times
  • Lawful targets also include dual-use objects like bridges, railheads, road networks, and similar transportation infrastructure used both by civilians and by enemy armed forces.
  • Can you close the door? There's an awful draught in here.
  • This school is too awful to deserve passive acceptance.
  • All one can say that is positive about this awful, stupid, imbecile dullard of a PM is that one day, soon he'll be gone and thank god for that.
  • There will be much written about the pros and cons of this case: murder is unlawful, aiding and abetting suicide is illegal. Times, Sunday Times
  • Consequently in Self v Self it was not lawful for a county court registrar to overrule an assisted party's choice of counsel where counsel had been selected by the assisted party from the appropriate panel.
  • The plot, about police investigator Stewart trying to nab a criminal while being unlawfully pursued with daffy poetess Colbert in tow, is too lightweight — and the characters spend too much time pointlessly arguing — for me to care. Weekly Mishmash: April 18-24 : Scrubbles.net
  • The hotel was awful! To begin with, our room was far too small. Then we found that the shower didn't work.
  • This ghost, laughing a little too loudly, would be all the more terrible for the flicker of awful, self-deluding pride kindling in it at the thought of white-knuckling through the grimmest month of the year with nothing to talk about in company but how it has given up drink. After the Binge Must Come the Purge
  • I've just made an awful botch of my translation.
  • This awful record probably has something to do with how have turned mental health into a system. Times, Sunday Times
  • Yesterday an inquest jury returned a verdict of unlawful killing on Mr and Mrs Robertson.
  • But this simply raises the question: why was lawful conduct abandoned in the first place?
  • Arrested for rape, he had agreed to a plea bargain in which he admitted unlawful sexual intercourse with a 13-year-old.
  • The state defines unlawful assembly as a threat of ‘tumultuous disturbance of the peace.’
  • ‘You're awfully quiet,’ he mentioned, taking off some oven mitts and turning to face me.
  • He has the most awful taste so you can probably imagine what his house looks like.
  • He's doing awfully well with it, and settling down to a manageable pace.
  • Sounds awful touchy-feely, but sometimes the most revolutionary ideas are touchy-feely.
  • She empowered him to tell them, that whatever blame she might throw on Mary's conduct, any opposition to their sovereign was totally unjustifiable, and incompatible with all order and good government: that it belonged not to them to reform, much less to punish, the maleadministration of their prince; and the only arms which subjects could in any case lawfully employ against the supreme authority, were entreaties, counsels, and representations: that if these expedients failed, they were next to appeal by their prayers to The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. From Elizabeth to James I.
  • It sounds awful to say but he was like a puppet master. Times, Sunday Times
  • This seems awfully similar, to a noneconomist such as me, to the pretense of knowledge that Austrians have so well criticized, starting with the socialist calculation debate. Roger Koppl - The Austrian Economists
  • He didn't refer to them as secret prisons and that the CIA would continue to have available to it what he called alternate techniques for interrogation, which he insisted had been legally reviewed, were lawful, were tough, he said, but safe and did not constitute torture. CNN Transcript Sep 6, 2006
  • So the only area of contention is the area of where we are investigating behaviour that may be unlawful.
  • Apol. xxxv., “publici hostes”; xxxvii., “hostes maluistis vocare generis humani Christianos” (you prefer to call Christians the enemies of the human race); Minuc., x., “pravae religionis obscuritas”; viii., “homines deploratae, inlicitae ac desperatae factionis” (reprobate characters, belonging to an unlawful and desperate faction); “plebs profanae coniurationis”; ix., “sacraria taeterrima impiae citionis” (abominable shrines of an impious assembly); “eruenda et execranda consensio” (a confederacy to be rooted out and detested). The Mission and Expansion of Christianity in the First Three Centuries
  • They needed to win awfully bad," Charlotte coach Paul Silas said. National Basketball Association - Knicks vs. Hornets
  • The dementist glared at the mandrill with awful fire in his eyes. Chainer's Torment
  • However, radio reception on MW and LW bands was simply awful, though this is probably a matter of adjustment.
  • Governments, if allowed, will continue to boondoggle along unless there are lawful reforms in place to prevent it.
  • These guys talk an awful load of old cobblers.
  • With prices from just over 30,000, that's an awful lot of car for one proudly wearing the Jag badge. The Sun
  • Dawg has not consumed supermarket ground beef since that scandal but buys his own round or chuck and grinds it at home with a sufficient amount of fat to assure the somewhat rotund Dawg that he does not shrink to skinny-fartdom and look like some Godawful feo Chapala shrimp on a motorbike who thinks he is Marlon Brando but has more in common with Boy George. The big chapala beef beef
  • By midnight we had crossed the Ghadaf and the quag felt too awful for further progress. Seven Pillars of Wisdom
  • Some cover personal injury, loss or damage to property and alleged unlawful detention. The Sun
  • Here, despite our fear of pursuit, despite the awful fetor of the rotting bodies, we had to pause to search through the knights ' gear. THE LIGHTSTONE: BOOK ONE, PART TWO OF THE EA CYCLE
  • Pressure from powerful corners must make it awfully easy to misplace files.
  • Delivering a majority verdict after nearly nine hours of deliberation, the jury found that the killing was lawful. Times, Sunday Times
  • Grandiose though he was, he could hardly have imagined the fearsome awfulness of the twenty-first-century American imperium when he baptized its birth in the early days of the Second World War.
  • Most likely to become the starter is freshman Jake Heaps, who is simply the best passer available and showed an awful lot of preparedness and poise coming on campus before his senior year of high school was completed. Around the Mountain West Conference
  • Tim, this is awful. I know what you must think, but it's not so.
  • It's but a thin red line that separates the lawful from the lawless.
  • Amy peered round at the vast landscape surrounding her and held her fingers to her nose to block the awful stench of rotting corpses.
  • She still has an awful lot to learn.
  • The first section of the dissertation studies the lawful grounds that entitle the parties to cancel a voyage charter party respectively under Chinese law and English law.
  • It sounded a little dry for my liking — I was kind of imagining the sort of intellectualist discourse that made the Mundane SF movement sound awfully stuffy, with their pshawing at pulp “follies”. Ethics and Enthusiasm
  • The problem is that it was done in sich a god awful way that it makes this country's "friends" in Iraq look no better than a bunch of islamic terrorist isurgents about to behead another westerner live on video. Am I bovvered ?
  • In the same three-month period, complaints for the central area included five for incivility, seven for assault, one for racial behaviour, and one for unlawful detention.
  • From his vantage point on the 22nd floor he can see an awful lot of London.
  • So rather than going back to the league with a rebuilt version to see what other, alternative decks from the same card pool might win, I have been consistently playing this Godawful losing deck all weekend. My Amazing Birthday Deck
  • They sat there horrified as the television blared the awful news.
  • As to the second kind of adjuration, which is by compulsion, we may lawfully use it for some purposes, and not for others. Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) Translated by Fathers of the English Dominican Province
  • I guess the question left unasked is whether the administration should be doing anything to prevent foreclosures, leaving aside the macroeconomic questions (also, the administration has been strongarming industry to renegotiate loan terms as part of the hope alliance, which i think is an awful idea, Barack Obama to his credit hasn't said a peep about preventing foreclosures). Archive 2008-03-01
  • Spokesmen often justify the government's murky behaviour by reference to the awfulness of the Tigers.
  • It was not actually as cool as I had hoped in that all the old brickwork is up the dangerous channel (the way we didn't go) so it was basically just a really long, filthy culvert, and the river was foul, but I now know an awful lot about buried rivers. May 10th, 2009
  • The jury returned a verdict of unlawful killing.
  • Everyone has got the right to protest but it has to be done peacefully and lawfully.
  • If malice aforethought is lacking the unlawful homicide will be manslaughter.
  • We'd expected modern and clean, with curtains, carpets and polished samovars, happy, helpful provodniks and reputedly awful food.
  • But on too many other things, he's been poor to awful - especially on class issues.
  • Rome was still the lawful mistress of the world: the pope and the emperor, the bishop and general, had abdicated their station by an inglorious retreat to the Rhone and the Danube; but if she could resume her virtue, the republic might again vindicate her liberty and dominion. The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
  • There is a healthy amount of grain, moderate edge enhancement, and awful special effects.
  • Has Palin figured out that in order to put on all her makeup and meet the news cycle of the east coast, she is gonna have to wake up awful early? Think Progress » Fox News VP: We ‘hope’ Palin will be ‘polarizing’ as a Fox News contributor.
  • I'm feeling awful because I've been so terribly slack lately.
  • Whenever one person is lawfully in the custody of another, the custodian owes a duty of care to the detainee.
  • He was walking with a stick and I thought he looked awful and shouldn't have gone back so soon.
  • It was an awful experience to go through, but it was part of my life, and I can never forget it.
  • But this awful moment, haunting in an overt way, only underscores what the rest of the film does not do - make you care a whit about what happens to Cal.
  • In cases involving criminal prosecution of unlawful belligerents, this could mean imposing peacetime rules on the collection of evidence.
  • And it's that part of the equation that most written SF is chickening out of: it's de rigueur to show how awfully bad things are going, and how much worse they will get, but almost nowhere do you see SF that thinks about how to * solve* those problems. EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: Jetse de Vries
  • It was a hoarse, awful, prolonged bellow, as of some giant ox in sore distress, and when it would stop, occasionally, faint and far would come another bellow, mellowed by distance, but sounding unspeakably eerie and frightsome. All Aboard A Story for Girls
  • Death may have been unforeseen but each party to a joint unlawful enterprise is equally liable for the consequences of acts done in pursuance thereof.
  • Come lunch time and I felt really awful - had a terrible headache and just wanted to go home and go to bed.
  • Even when it works, network latency is usually awful. When It Comes to 3G, Better, Not Big, Matters
  • The jurors also did not accept the electrician's death was a lawful killing and returned an open verdict last Friday. The Sun
  • In SF circles, this is being seen as another attack on science fiction as subliterary as opposed to paraliterary which is just so awful and mean. Nick Mamatas' Journal
  • Thou mayst do this if thou wilt, pater non deperit filiam, nec frater sororem, a father dotes not on his own daughter, a brother on a sister; and why? because it is unnatural, unlawful, unfit. Anatomy of Melancholy
  • My client is seeking substantial damages for unlawful arrest and false imprisonment. Times, Sunday Times
  • Would you mind awfully sending more clues? Times, Sunday Times
  • Harry, that awful, awful singing beggars belief.
  • Tom felt quite confident of his safety, but physically he felt awful.
  • OK, so the grammar's awful, but the storyline hinted at in those few words could be fascinating.
  • And it takes an awful lot of pieces to become the world's biggest sportswear retailer. Times, Sunday Times
  • He has the most awful taste so you can probably imagine what his house looks like.
  • Though Dad is awfully good at growing green things, the Little Sprouts pine for something sweeter.
  • Silence or mere lack of objection does not constitute a lawful waiver.
  • A man may keep his friendship sacred, because promises of friendship are very awful ties; but, methinks, he cannot, but in a burlesque sense, be said to keep his ease _sacred_. The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II
  • With his place on the social scale preassigned by birth, Valentin is not so fortunate: “What I envy you is your liberty,” he observes, “your wide range, your freedom to come and go, your not having a lot of people, who take themselves awfully seriously, expecting something of you.” Archive 2009-11-01
  • we are lawfully wedded now
  • The Naval Postgraduate School has defined cyberterrorism as the unlawful destruction or disruption of digital property to intimidate or coerce people.
  • Ick. Mary Sue Killers think they are doing people a favour, but their logic is awful. Superhero Nation: how to write superhero novels and comic books » How to take criticism professionally
  • It is unlawful for a teacher to inflict corporal punishment on pupils.
  • She's a real legal immigrant who joined the American family lawfully, which is the definition of the word. CNN Transcript Apr 11, 2006
  • When it comes to dealing with the delicate question,we have a tendency toward catastrophizing and awfulizing.
  • And how awful that poor Mary dies as she lived — stupidly, clumsily, in "bewilderment," running foolishly back and forth. The Prime of Ms. Muriel Spark
  • He has certainly managed to get an awful lot of people to misunderstand him.
  • A red puppy coat that has been scissored back to expose charcoal gray or black undercoat looks awful.
  • They have been kitted out for work with awful fawn aertex shirts, grey slacks and green pullovers but they wear silk stockings and lipstick when off duty, and have rapidly acquired a reputation for being ‘fast’, which has all the young men buzzing round like wasps at a honey pot. Presumption of Death
  • That is a short-term, pragmatic solution that would bring an awful lot more flights into the country. Times, Sunday Times
  • If the campaign has been logical to the strategists, the public perception is that it has been awful.
  • But regime change could result from action that is otherwise lawful.
  • But in direct contrast to this point the laid-back attitude is an awfully good antidote to stress - in theory.
  • Most made-for-TV animation is pretty bad, with uneven animation, awful scripts, and poor execution.
  • To which I can only think that he must have been giving away an awful lot of free hats to his celebrity clientele. Times, Sunday Times
  • They convey the awful immediacy and sheer terror of modern combat, with its fearsome gizmos and consequently fearful casualties. Times, Sunday Times
  • Keep in mind that comically large pants are an awfully convenient way to hide a perma-rection. Best of the Best Week Ever! | Best Week Ever
  • It was argued in support of his appeal to the Court of Appeal that the defendant had committed no unlawful act for purposes of either count. Times, Sunday Times
  • The jokes were inexpressibly awful.
  • It was absolutely awful saying goodbye. The Sun
  • If that were the case, Secretary White might justifiably (and lawfully) refuse to countersign the certificate on ethical grounds based on the manifest impropriety of Blago's action. Illinois Sec. of State Refuses To Approve Burris Appointment, But Admits He Really Can't Stop It
  • But those are still awful numbers.
  • Teenager, 19, charged over Claremont nightclub 'glassing' A MUNSTER teenager has been charged with unlawful wounding after allegedly glassing a man in the face in a Claremont nightclub. NEWS.com.au | Top Stories
  • But if you put pressure on him, he's awful throwing outside the pocket and also has a tendency to get gun-shy, and he starts throwing off his back foot.
  • It made R. feel even more awful that he knew people suspected him of being a malingerer - the very last person you'd have had the right to accuse of being work-shy. Giving evidence to the Chilcot inquiry, Tony Blair said: “I...
  • She recorded a verdict of unlawful killing. Times, Sunday Times
  • There was an air of gravity and importance about the garb of this person, and something indescribably odd, I might say awful, in the perfect, stone-like movelessness of the figure, that effectually checked the testy comment which had at once risen to the lips of the irritated artist. The Purcell Papers
  • Yetwhile my mind spins furiously with all these things I should do andshould want to do, my bodyfeels awfully stubborn about remaining perched in one spot, complaining with increased aches and stiffness about gardneing orbiking, invoking extra effort to read with eyes that can no longer bring fine printinto focus. 2008 July « Becca’s Byline
  • I agree with you about the color -- it looks awful.
  • The strange thing about this new establishment is that it seems to be awfully big. Times, Sunday Times
  • He said the evidence was too inconsistent to return a verdict of unlawful killing. Times, Sunday Times
  • I know there are some seniors who are kind of bedraggled and can't picture being vigorous enough to be Prez at 72, but there are an awful lot of seniors who resent the age jokes. Latest Articles
  • And I flung myself on top of him, and there was this awful noise, the smell of cordite, death, powder, gunpowder, everything and that passed over.
  • The place written about in Ballard is awful all around. Best barbecue in the West?
  • She's just awful in her role as the psychiatrist who ludicrously gets stuck in the precinct.

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