scary
Language: English
Part of speech: adj
Pronunciation: enpr: skâr'ē
ipa: /ˈskɛə.ɹi/
ipa: /ˈskɛː.ɹi/
ipa: /ˈskɛə.ɹi/
ipa: /ˈskɛɹ.i/
ipa: /ˈskeːɹi/
note: without the cheer–chair merger
ipa: /ˈskeəɹi/
note: New Zealand, cheer–chair merger
ipa: /ˈskiəɹi/
ipa: /ˈskeɹɪ/
ipa: /ˈskeɹe/
note: Lancashire, fair–fur merger
ipa: /ˈskɜːɹɪ/
homophone: skerry stripped-by-parse_pron_post_template_fn
rhymes: -ɛəɹi
Forms: form: scarier
form: scariest
form: scarey
Etymology: From scare + -y.
Senses: examples: text: The tiger's jaws were scary.
text: She was hiding behind her pillow during the scary parts of the film.
text: He watched Conjuring but it was too scary for him.
text: Well, we swarmed along down the river road, just carrying on like wildcats; and to make it more scary the sky was darking up, and the lightning beginning to wink and flitter, and the wind to shiver amongst the leaves.
ref: 1884 December 10, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], chapter 29, in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: (Tom Sawyer’s Comrade) […], London: Chatto & Windus, […], →OCLC:
text: “[…] How scary it is to know that everyone I love depends on me! I’m afraid I’ll do something wrong.”
ref: 1982, Anne Tyler, chapter 2, in Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant, New York: Ivy Books, published 1992, page 70:
text: Age notwithstanding, none of these men seem interested in sailing to Byzantium anyway: Justine’s got them all on the last stage to someplace wilder and scarier, where Yeats’s “monuments of unaging intellect” are thoroughly beside the point.
ref: 2007 February 9, Terrence Rafferty, “Technicolor Dreamboat”, in The New York Times:
text: The biggest, scariest, scarriest man in the room said, “It's about time, Jones.”
ref: 2020, Lesley L. Smith, A Jack For All Seasons, page 45:
synonyms: word: frightening
word: hair-raising
word: petrifying
word: terrifying
word: affreux
word: alarming
word: spine-tingling
word: appalling
word: awful
word: buggish
word: butt-clenching
word: buttock-clenching
word: dismayful
word: dreadful
word: fearful
word: flaysome
word: flesh-crawling
word: formidable
word: freaky
word: frightening
word: frightensome
word: frightful
word: ghastly
word: ghostly
word: grisly
word: hair-curling
word: hair-raising
word: horrible
word: horrid
word: horrific
word: horrifying
word: horripilating
word: pulse-pounding
word: scaring
word: scary
word: shocking
word: skin-crawling
word: terrible
word: terrifying
word: terrorsome
glosses: Causing fear or anxiety
examples: text: Linda changed her hair, and it’s scary how much she looks like her mother.
glosses: Uncannily striking or surprising.
examples: text: “Whist! whist!” said Natty, in a low voice, on hearing a slight sound made by Elizabeth, in bending over the side of the canoe, in eager curiosity; “’tis a sceary animal, and it’s a far stroke for a spear. […]”
ref: 1823, James Fenimore Cooper, chapter 5, in The Pioneers, volume 2, New York: Charles Wiley, the UK edition of the same year has scary (p. 262), page 77:
text: “She’s cursed,” said the skipper; “speak her fair:
I’m scary always to see her shake
Her wicked head, with its wild gray hair,
And nose like a hawk, and eyes like a snake.”
ref: 1867, John Greenleaf Whittier, The Tent on the Beach, and Other Poems, Boston: Ticknor and Fields, The Wreck of Rivermouth, page 25:
text: And let us say to these interests that, until the Buy-It-Made-In-Texas movement co-operates with the farmers, we are going to be a little scary of the snare.
ref: 1916, Texas Department of Agriculture, “Bulletin”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name), numbers 47-57, page 150:
text: The two brothers stood over the dead rat […].
“Please, Bigger, take ’im out,” Vera begged.
“Aw, don’t be so scary,” Buddy said.
ref: 1940, Richard Wright, Native Son, book 1, London: Jonathan Cape, published 1970, page 10:
synonyms: nervous
jumpy
glosses: Subject to sudden alarm; easily frightened.
Derived terms: scaries
scarily
scariness
scarisome
scary-ass
scary devil monastery
scary sharp
scarysome
Sunday scaries