scare

Formsscares, scaring, scared

Pluralscares

1. 1
   verbtransitive

   To make someone suddenly feel afraid, especially in a small or brief way.

   The mask was designed to scare visitors at the haunted house.

   A spider on the wall scared her more than she expected.

   Similarfrighten, startle, alarm, spook, terrify

   Oppositereassure, calm, comfort, soothe

   Note

   Here the word's Norse root shows through. Old Norse skirra meant "to frighten" but also "to shrink away from, shun," and the Proto-Germanic form behind it meant "to shoo, scare off." That driving-away sense is alive in Shakespeare's The Third Part of Henry the Sixt, where a crossbow's noise "will scare the herd." Emphatic English adds scare the ___ out of someone, which Roy Bedichek's 1957 letter fills with "the very dogwater."

2. 2
   nouncountable

   A short-lived feeling of fright, usually mild and quickly over.

   The loud bang gave everyone a scare.

   She got quite a scare when the lights suddenly went out.

   Similarfright, start (entry), shock, jolt, turn

   Note

   The noun grew out of the verb. Middle English sker, skere, "terror, fright," was formed from skerren, "to frighten," the Norse-derived verb behind the everyday "frighten" verb. It usually comes with an adjective of size: a bad scare, quite a scare. Sports reporting uses it for a near-defeat. A team that comes back from two goals behind has survived a major scare.

3. 3
   nouncountable

   A cause of alarm or panic; something that inspires fear or dread in many people.

   The security scare forced organizers to cancel the concert.

   The scare over tainted water emptied every store in the region within days.

   Similaralarm, panic, alert, furor

   Note

   Where a fright is private, this alarm is public and shared. Its most productive shape puts a noun in front to name the threat, as in a food-poisoning scare or a security scare. That compound pattern is a quick way to tell it from the passing fright. You have a scare yourself, but a whole population lives through one.

4. 4
   nouncountable

   An object or device used to frighten animals or people away.

   They rigged a noisy scare to drive deer from the orchard.

   A flashing scare kept the pigeons from nesting on the roof.

   Similardeterrent, repellent

   Oppositelure

   Note

   The concrete end of the noun: not a feeling or a panic but a thing set up to cause one. It is countable and names its target with for, as in scares for birds of prey or snakes, the phrasing of Alec H. Chisholm's Bird Wonders of Australia (1948). He sets the word in inverted commas, a sign it still read as specialized. Compare the 'cause of alarm' meaning, an alarm rather than an object.

5. 5
   verbintransitive

   To be susceptible to fright; to become frightened easily.

   He doesn't scare easily, even in a crisis.

   The new recruits scared at every unfamiliar noise.

   Similarpanic, spook, startle, flinch

   Note

   The verb turns intransitive when the person who feels the fear becomes the subject, and no one is named as doing the scaring. It describes a temperament rather than a single moment, and it typically travels with easily, as in I don't scare easily. When someone or something is actually doing the frightening, reach for the transitive verb instead.

6. 6
   adjective

   Lean or scanty; existing only in small amounts.

   Provisions grew scare as the long winter dragged on.

   In those scare years, every grain of wheat counted.

   Similarscarce, scanty, lean, meager, short

   Oppositeplentiful, abundant, ample

   Note

   A homograph, not a relative. This adjective belongs to a separate word from the fright senses, which share their own Middle English and Norse story. It compares with more and most (more scare, most scare) rather than taking -er and -est, so it never becomes "scarer."

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