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What is "formidable"

Crossword clues for formidable

formidable
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
formidable
adjective
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
a formidable enemy (=a very powerful enemy)
▪ The North Vietnamese army proved to be a formidable enemy.
a formidable obstacle (=one that makes it very difficult to achieve something)
▪ There are formidable obstacles to legal reform.
a formidable opponent (=a very strong opponent)
▪ In debate, he was a formidable opponent.
a formidable reputation (=one that makes people have a lot of respect for someone or something, or be afraid of them)
▪ After the meeting, I understood why he had such a formidable reputation.
a formidable/daunting task (=very difficult)
▪ Achieving these targets will be a formidable task.
a formidable/daunting/tough challenge (=a very difficult one)
▪ How to deal with waste is a daunting challenge for the west.
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADVERB
as
▪ Only two years established, barely thirty-three years old, and already he had a reputation as formidable as his father's.
▪ He did, in fact, look every bit as formidable in his sleep as he did when awake.
▪ So Abelard's theory seems to present me with a challenge as formidable as climbing Mount Everest.
more
▪ Something else, wilder, uninhibited, even more formidable than her mind, was completely in charge.
▪ His campaign apparatus looks more formidable than his numbers in various polls seem to show.
▪ Wings bigger and blacker and more formidable than any he had yet seen.
▪ In the House, the task is more formidable.
▪ He looked taller, more formidable, more patrician.
▪ In a curious way he seemed more formidable than before.
▪ He looked somehow smarter and more formidable now, than at the funeral.
▪ Alone with Damian Flint Rachel found him even more formidable than he had at first appeared.
most
▪ And the most formidable threats to reproductive destiny that a human individual faces come from other human individuals.
▪ A distillation of the riches of the existing law would be a most formidable task.
▪ To begin with, these forces have created the most formidable barrier to animal movement on earth.
▪ Has he signed up one of the most formidable Arabs to ride for his expanding pro team?
▪ Don't you worry, some of the women I've met have proved to be the most formidable of foes.
▪ She was above all a most formidable female.
▪ Denbighshire have matched Flintshire's show of strength by naming their most formidable line-up in pursuit of the coveted last-four ticket.
so
▪ Canny trading played a big part in making the Orioles so formidable.
■ NOUN
barrier
▪ To begin with, these forces have created the most formidable barrier to animal movement on earth.
▪ Whether clipped into shape or left natural, barberry is a formidable barrier thanks to its dense foliage and profusion of thorns.
▪ Other status groups erect less formidable barriers to entry.
challenge
▪ All this proved a formidable challenge to our sweeper, a delightful Rajasthani lady named Murti.
▪ The formidable challenge for progressive bishops and theologians who dominated the Second Vatican Council was to formulate a compelling alternative.
▪ Working out an effective strategy to control it rather than let it control us is a formidable challenge.
▪ Chess posed a formidable challenge for computer scientists.
▪ At their most fully developed business information systems provide a formidable challenge to the creativity of archivists and historians alike.
enemy
▪ Damp is a formidable enemy and too much warmth as great a one, especially where leather bindings are concerned.
▪ When legislation touches freedom of thought and freedom of speech, such a tendency is a formidable enemy of the free spirit.
▪ To scoff at or curse the little men was to court disaster, for they made formidable enemies.
force
▪ Thereafter it evolved rapidly into a formidable force.
▪ A coalition of the young and old might, from even the most tentative beginnings, grow into a formidable force.
▪ There he was a formidable force.
▪ Together they represented a formidable force, but the big question was whether they could work together.
▪ MacArthur's guard was a formidable force.
obstacle
▪ When it came to assembling facts and details, the system was a formidable obstacle.
▪ To be sure, formidable obstacles lie ahead for advocates of a merger.
▪ Selim had formidable obstacles to overcome, however, in modernising the archaic structure of the Ottoman empire.
▪ The stairs were a formidable obstacle to son Michael, also, since we lived in a bungalow.
▪ The Pennines presented the most formidable obstacles of all to the canals, but even they were successfully overcome.
opponent
▪ The character who can maintain such an idea is a formidable opponent to established order.
▪ A formidable opponent, I suspect.
▪ She had no vision of money as an independent power, or a formidable opponent.
▪ Durable Free State prop Piet Bester has proved a technically formidable opponent.
problem
▪ It is a formidable problem of optimisation but it is, at least, a potential solution.
▪ For example, the modelling of the corporate sector, particularly allowing for imperfect competition, is likely to pose formidable problems.
▪ Any attack on Beaumaris would have been presented with formidable problems.
▪ Henry Livings faced formidable problems in tackling this new translation of the original Barber.
task
▪ A distillation of the riches of the existing law would be a most formidable task.
▪ The new managers obviously had their work cut out for them: learning how to be a manager was a formidable task.
▪ As with care within the household, the provision of care from outside can be a formidable task.
▪ How to tantalize our lower-middle-class students was a formidable task.
▪ Making money and turning out literate graduates are themselves formidable tasks, made none the easier when burdened with idealistic moral baggage.
team
▪ Mr Palumbo assembled a formidable team of architects and planners.
▪ Harvard has assembled a formidable team of black academics under the leadership of Henry Louis Gates, a dazzling self-publicist.
▪ They were organised and formidable teams before its formation.
woman
▪ Somehow this small but formidable woman made her way through the throng to reach her son.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ Russia still has a formidable nuclear arsenal.
▪ The team faces some formidable opponents in the next week.
▪ They face the formidable task of working out a peace plan.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ A coalition of the young and old might, from even the most tentative beginnings, grow into a formidable force.
▪ But modern publishers knew they needed a very formidable, sure-selling author to make the installment plan succeed.
▪ Like her husband, she has formidable political skills and impressive recuperative powers.
▪ Sheltering the village with is impressive yet formidable presence is the north face of the Eiger.
▪ The resource implications of a meaningful software acquisition programme are formidable.
▪ Thereafter it evolved rapidly into a formidable force.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Formidable

Formidable \For"mi*da*ble\, a. [L. formidabilis, fr. formidare to fear, dread: cf. F. formidable.] Exciting fear or apprehension; impressing dread; adapted to excite fear and deter from approach, encounter, or undertaking; alarming.

They seemed to fear the formodable sight.
--Dryden.

I swell my preface into a volume, and make it formidable, when you see so many pages behind.
--Drydn.

Syn: Dreadful; fearful; terrible; frightful; shocking; horrible; terrific; tremendous.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
formidable

mid-15c., "causing fear," from Middle French formidable (15c.), from Latin formidabilis "causing fear, terrible," from formidare "to fear," from formido "fearfulness, fear, terror, dread." Sense has softened somewhat over time, in the direction of "so great (in strength, size, etc.) as to discourage effort." Related: Formidably.

Wiktionary
formidable

a. 1 causing fear, dread, awe or admiration as a result of size, strength, or some other impressive quality; commanding respect; causing wonder or astonishment 2 difficult to defeat or overcome

WordNet
formidable

  1. adj. extremely impressive in strength or excellence; "a formidable opponent"; "the challenge was formidable"; "had a formidable array of compositions to his credit"; "the formidable army of brains at the Prime Minister's disposal"

  2. inspiring fear; "the formidable prospect of major surgery"; "a tougher and more redoubtable adversary than the heel-clicking, jackbooted fanatic"- G.H.Johnston; "something unnerving and prisonlike about high gray wall" [syn: redoubtable, unnerving]

Wikipedia
Formidable (La Toya Jackson album)

Formidable is the soundtrack to the show performed at the Moulin Rouge in Paris, France by American singer La Toya Jackson. Only 3,000 copies were created and it has become one of the most sought-after albums by La Toya's fans.

La Toya was the main attraction at the Moulin Rouge for four months, at which point she broke her contract and was ordered by the French courts to pay $550,000 in damages to the owners of Moulin Rouge.

Formidable (song)

"Formidable" is a song by Belgian singer Stromae. The song was released as a digital download in Belgium on 4 June 2013 as the second single from his second studio album Racine Carrée (2013). The song entered at the number 1 spot the week of its release in Belgium and reached number 1 in France. It was his most successful single since " Alors on Danse" in 2009.

Formidable (horse)

Formidable (8 April 1975 – 1997) was an American-bred, British-trained Thoroughbred racehorse and sire. He showed his best form as a two-year-old when he won five consecutive races in little over a month, including the Mill Reef Stakes and the Middle Park Stakes. At the end of the year he was regarded as the best juvenile in Britain over a distance of six furlongs. In the following year he was campaigned over one mile and failed to win, although he was placed in the St James's Palace Stakes, the Sussex Stakes and the Waterford Crystal Mile. As a four-year-old he won three minor races and finished third in the Lockinge Stakes before being retired from racing. He later became a successful breeding stallion.

Usage examples of "formidable".

He is a formidable warrior, formidable enough so that in Book 7 no Achaean volunteers to face him in single combat until they are tongue-lashed by Menelaus and then by Nestor.

The husband was duly warned, but, with a great show of intrepidity, he answered with a joke every time he was told that I was a formidable rival.

The strength of ancient Germany appears formidable, when we consider the effects that might have been produced by its united effort.

This formidable league, however, the only one that appears in the two first centuries of the Imperial history, was entirely dissipated, without leaving any traces behind in Germany.

The nations which composed the formidable conspiracy against Rome were eight in number--the Marsians, Pelignians, Marrucinians, Vestinians, Picentines, Samnites, Apulians, and Lucanians.

Pressed tightly to the wall between them was Yazz, bright eyes ashine in the gloom of this level, lips drawn back to show fangs near as formidable as those of Bojor.

Arrived upon the frontier of the Jesuit territory, they found themselves opposed by an army of the Indians, who looked so formidable that the troops retired to Asuncion, and the leaders, foiled in the field, and not having force to attack the Jesuits in their own territory, set vigorously to inflame the minds of the people against them.

The formidable navy of Basiliscus pursued its prosperous navigation from the Thracian Bosphorus to the coast of Africa.

One breathless afternoon as I sat in the library at Belvidere reading over a packet of new books just arrived from England by way of Wilmington, Miss Mary Erwin appeared in the doorway, clad in a white morning dress trimmed with lace, and carrying a cloth-covered basket, but she looked no less formidable for this maidenly affectation.

In the next room Bharati softly sang the same mournful song she had sung so long ago beside the temple of the formidable goddess Kali.

FIFTEEN HUNDRED years of neglect the Roman defenses at Boghole Gap were still formidable: they were like belt and braces attached to self-supporting trousers.

Bolo is always a formidable opponent, but I rather suspect that any Bolos assigned to these colony efforts will be older, less capable models.

The two of them then danced the tandav, the great and terrible dance of procreation, awakening the entire universe with their tantric sexuality, and at the moment of their joining, by using the formidable energies unleashed by their union, Lord Brahma was able to restore Kama to his body.

The Hill of Pan became his lookout, its bottom now a formidable rampart of blocks from the gymnasium, and huge stone walls cut off both sides of Canopic Avenue at its intersection with Royal Avenue.

But by any accounting, the Dowayne of Cereus House remained a formidable figure.