Horror is an intense feeling of fear, shock, and disgust all mixed together. When you watch a scary movie and feel your stomach drop as something terrible appears on screen, that's horror. It's stronger than just being startled or nervous: horror makes you want to look away while somehow being unable to stop watching.

The word describes both the feeling itself and things that cause it. A horror movie aims to terrify audiences with monsters, suspense, or disturbing situations. Writers like Edgar Allan Poe became famous for horror stories that made readers' skin crawl.

Horror also describes our reaction to real tragedies or cruelty. When people learn about a disaster or crime, they might respond in horror, meaning with deep shock and distress. Someone might watch in horror as a friend nearly falls from a climbing wall, or recoil in horror from spoiled food.

Notice that horror combines fear with a sense that something is deeply wrong or unnatural. You might fear a difficult test, but you'd feel horror at witnessing someone get badly hurt. Horror touches something primal in us: the recognition that something terrible has happened or might happen, and we're powerless to stop it.