scary

Formsscarier, scariest

1. 1
   adjectivecolloquial

   Causing fear or anxiety in someone.

   The old house had a scary feel, with creaking floors and long shadows.

   Public speaking can be scary even for seasoned professionals.

   Similarfrightening, terrifying, alarming, dreadful, horrible

   Oppositereassuring, comforting, soothing

   Note

   The word is built simply, from the verb scare plus the adjective-making -y, and it compares regularly as scarier and scariest. Mark Twain, in 1884, still writes "more scary" in plain narrative ("to make it more scary the sky was darking up"). Today it sits most comfortably in conversation. For formal writing, frightening or terrifying is the safer choice.

2. 2
   adjectivecolloquial

   Uncannily striking or surprising, impressive to an almost unsettling degree.

   The accuracy of his predictions this season was honestly scary.

   She has a scary talent for guessing what people are about to say.

   Similaruncanny, eerie, spooky, freaky, astonishing

3. 3
   adjectivecolloquialUS

   Prone to sudden alarm; easily frightened by unexpected things.

   The mare is too scary to ride near busy traffic.

   He's a scary sort, flinching at every unexpected knock on the door.

   Similarnervous, jumpy

   Oppositecalm, steady, placid, unflappable

   Note

   Here the fear runs the other way: the scary horse or person is the one who startles, unlike the everyday "frightening" sense. The use is American and colloquial. It runs from James Fenimore Cooper's The Pioneers (1823) to Richard Wright's Native Son (1940): "Aw, don't be so scary." It can take of, as in the Texas Department of Agriculture's 1916 Bulletin: "a little scary of the snare." Nervous or jumpy avoids any ambiguity.

4. 4
   adverbcolloquial

   To a degree that is frightening or strikingly surprising.

   The deadline came up scary quick this year.

   The storm grew scary strong within minutes.

   Similarfrighteningly, alarmingly, terrifyingly, freakishly

   Note

   An adverb that does without -ly, set directly before another adjective: scary big, scary fat, scary quick. Peter Corris, in Torn Apart (2010), describes a man who "was scary big" and found work as a bouncer. The adjective compares as scarier and scariest, but this adverb does not compare at all. It belongs to casual speech. In careful prose, scarily does the same job.

5. 5
   noununcountable

   Barren ground bearing only a thin covering of grass.

   The farmer's northern fields were mostly scary, good for little but rough grazing.

   They drove the cattle off the thin scary toward better pasture.

   Note

   This noun has nothing to do with fear. It comes from an English dialect word scare meaning "scraggy", so scary is land in a scraggy state, its grass too thin to hide the soil. It shares only a spelling with the "frightening" adjective. Context nearly always settles which word is meant, since this one is a noun naming ground.

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