All 13 Uses of

formidable
in
1776, by McCullough

Three gilded cherubs on top—symbols of England, Scotland, and Ireland—held high a gilded crown, while over the heavy spoked wheels, front and back, loomed four gilded sea gods, formidable reminders that Britannia ruled the waves.†
p. 4.6

formidable = intimidating or impressive

The British still held Charlestown, which was largely in ruins, and Bunker Hill, which was their citadel and a formidable advantage.†
p. 26.2 *

For such a trust, to lead an undisciplined, poorly armed volunteer force of farmers and tradesmen against the best-trained, best-equipped, most formidable military force on earth—and with so much riding on the outcome—was, in reality, more than any man was qualified for.†
p. 50.1

Snow in the Berkshires lay thick, exactly as needed, but the mountains, steep and tumbled and dissected by deep, narrow valleys, posed a challenge as formidable as any.†
p. 84.8

The humiliation the British had been subjected to, John Hancock warned Washington, could well make them an even more formidable foe.†
p. 111.9

For months British warships, including the 64-gun Asia, had been a formidable presence, anchored in the Upper Bay, reminders that the city was entirely at their mercy.†
p. 119.6

Such courage and high ideals were of little consequence, of course, the Declaration itself being no more than a declaration without military success against the most formidable force on earth.†
p. 136.7

"I shrink and tremble at the importance of our present conduct the weight absolute without alleviation of perhaps posterity on the shoulders of the present army, an army, I am sorry to say, [that] is not sufficiently numerous to resist the formidable attacks which will probably be made," he told his brother in a letter of August 5.†
p. 148.1

As one particularly clear-headed officer, Major Benjamin Tallmadge of Connecticut, would later write, putting himself in Washington's place: To move so large a body of troops, with all their necessary appendages, across a river full a mile wide, with a rapid current, in face of a victorious well-disciplined army nearly three times as numerous as his own, and a fleet capable of stopping the navigation, so that not one boat could have passed over, seemed to present most formidable obstacles.†
p. 187.7

Despite its formidable presence high over the river, its steep, rockbound approaches, Fort Washington was, in several ways, not the impregnable bastion it seemed.†
p. 237.1

Under normal condi tions the width of the river at McKonkey's Ferry was about eight hundred feet, but with the water as high as it was that night, the distance was greater by fifty feet or more, and the current strong, the ice formidable, as all accounts attest.†
p. 275.1

And while it had been "the fashion in this army to treat them in the most contemptible light, they are now become a formidable enemy.†
p. 291.2

Definition:

intimidating or impressive -- arousing fear or admiration due to impressiveness or challenge