This is just a guess, but perhaps 'terrific' used to have a negative meaning derived from 'terror', but started to be used as hyperbolic slang for something positive a long time ago, and the official meaning slowly shifted. A bit like the word 'awesome' used to mean 'extremely overwhelming' (and was often used in a negative way) but slang changed the meaning to positive over time... also the way nowadays we can say things are 'bad' 'sick' 'ill' 'insane' etc. to mean something's impressive and good. So maybe 'terrific' changed from "terrifying" to "terrifyingly amazing" ?

by Anonymous 3 months ago