Meanings of the word 'miedo'

Question

Reading my conversational Spanish book I came across the phrase 'Nos llevamos de miedo'. I only knew 'miedo' as meaning 'fear', so I was a bit confused about the meaning of this phrase. Looking through our SD dictionary I saw that, although 'miedo' does indeed mean fear most of the time, 'de miedo' actually means 'brilliant\great'.

So I assume the meaning of the phrase is 'We get along great together'. This makes sense in the context of the conversation.

It seems strange though that a word can mean 'fear' most of the time, but then actually mean 'brilliant' at other times! Then I thought, perhaps this is like how English people use the word 'wicked'. ie its literal meaning is 'evil/hurtful' but then used in slang terms can mean 'brilliant/great' - eg, 'this book is wicked'!

Am I thinking along the right lines, or way off?

I've no idea but it's an excellent question - patch, Aug 20, 2011

cheers mate - billygoat, Aug 20, 2011

Awesome question! - SusanaEspana, Aug 20, 2011

thank you Susana :) - billygoat, Aug 20, 2011

Answer 1

You're spot on, Billy.

¡Lo pasamos de miedo! = We had a fantastic (wicked!) time!

This is from Spain, I don't know about over the ocean. (I hear that instead of saying 'pasarlo bien' they use 'pasarLA bien', for 'to have a good time'.)

Yay! I'm getting scared Sally, I'm starting to understand all this lol. Thanks for your time :-) - billygoat, Aug 20, 2011

We use this expression with a small change in Argentina. We say "lo pasamos de terror". - 00e657d4, Aug 20, 2011

thank you guillermo - thats interesting to know too! - billygoat, Aug 20, 2011