fighten

Fighten is an archaic or dialect English verb meaning to frighten, scare, or intimidate. It is primarily attested in Scots and northern English varieties and is usually treated as a historical variant of the modern verb frighten.

Etymology and history: Fighten appears in Middle English and early modern sources as a spelling variant of frighten. It belongs to the same semantic field as fright and reflects the era’s variable orthography and pronunciation. In dialect texts, fighten can coexist with frighten, with nuances shaped by regional usage and the author’s intention.

Usage: In older literature, fighten is used to describe causing fear in someone or to threaten them. In many contexts it carries a more forceful or direct sense than the contemporary verb frighten, though the exact nuance varies across texts and periods. As a result, fighten often appears in quotations from or descriptions of historical dialect writing rather than in modern prose.

Modern status: Today, fighten is rarely used in standard English and is mainly of interest to historians of language or dialectology. Contemporary writers typically use frighten or other verbs such as scare or intimidate. The term may appear in glossaries of dialect, in linguistic studies, or in translations intended to preserve historical spelling and feel.

See also: Frighten; English dialects; Scots language.