scarecrow
Part of speech: noun
verb
Morphological type: compound
Topics: government
military
politics
war
Etymology: The noun is derived from scare (“to frighten, startle, terrify”) + crow (“bird of the genus Corvus”). The word displaced other terms such as bogle (now dialectal, dated), sewel or shewel, and shoy-hoy (perhaps imitative of the cry of crows).
The verb is derived from the noun.
Compound parts: scare
crow
Inflected forms:
form: scarecrows
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: scare-crow
pos: noun
tags: alternative
obsolete
form: skarcrow
pos: noun
tags: alternative
obsolete
form: scarecrows
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: scarecrowing
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: scarecrowed
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: scarecrowed
pos: verb
tags: past
Senses:
gloss: An effigy, typically made of straw and dressed in old clothes, fixed to a pole in a field to deter birds from eating crops or seeds planted there.
pos: noun
examples: VVots thou vvho's returnd, / The unthrift Bonvile, ragged as a ſcarre-crovv, / The VVarres have gnavv'd his garments to the skinne: […]
[W]e ſet him [the Devil] up like a Scare-Crovv to fright Children and old VVomen, to fill up old Stories, make Songs and Ballads, and in a VVord, carry on the lovv priz'd Buffoonry of the common People; […]
The things which he had to put on were so old and ragged that they would scarce hold together; and they were so dirty that no ragamuffin of the street would have picked them out of the gutter; no scarecrow in the fields ever had such clothes.
Priapus was frequently represented sculpturally, as a kind of scarecrow among the fields and even as a protection over graveyards.
gloss: A person or animal regarded as resembling a scarecrow (sense 1) in some way; especially, a tall, thin, awkward person; or a person wearing ragged and tattered clothes.
pos: noun
tags: broadly
derogatory
examples: The ſeely man ſeeing him ryde ſo ranck, / And ayme at him, fell flatt to ground for feare, / And crying Mercy loud, his pitious handes gan reare. // Thereat the Scarcrovv vvexed vvondrous provvd, / Through fortune of his firſt aduenture fayre, / And vvith big thundring voice reuyld him lovvd; […]
No eye hath ſeene ſuch skarcrovves. Ile not march vvith them through Couentry vvith them, thats flat: […]
So, a true Souldier, / He is his Countreys ſtrength, his Soueraignes ſafety, / And to ſecure his peace, he makes himſelfe / The heyre of danger, nay the ſubiect of it, / And runnes thoſe vertuous hazards, that this Scarre-crovv / Cannot endure to heare of.
In opposition to this society, there sprung up another composed of scarecrows and skeletons, who, being very meagre and envious, did all they could to thwart the designs of their bulky brethren, whom they represented as men of dangerous principles; […]
A Conſultation vvas novv entered into, hovv to proceed in order to diſcover the Mother. A Scrutiny vvas firſt made into the Characters of the female Servants of the Houſe, vvho vvere all acquitted by Mrs. VVilkins, and vvith apparent Merit; for ſhe had collected them herſelf, and perhaps it vvould be difficult to find ſuch another Set of Scarecrovvs.
Obedient to this summons there ranged themselves in front of the schoolmaster's desk, half-a-dozen scarecrows, out at knees and elbows, one of whom placed a torn and filthy book beneath his learned eye.
'Why, my friend,' he said, stopping to contemplate the scarecrow, 'where hast thou gotten these rags and this wound?'
 'I have escaped, sir, from a French prison, and have received a hurt on the forehead.'
Many of the palki gāris used as hack cabs in Calcutta and other large towns, owned by speculators who know nothing of their business, including liquor-sellers, table-servants, and even priestesses of Venus retired from business, are drawn by scarecrows that recall in a reduced and shadowy form the outlines of Bewick's grim woodcut,—"Waiting for death." But the mercy of death is denied to them.
gloss: Synonym of crow scarer (“a farmhand employed to scare birds from the fields”).
pos: noun
tags: dated
gloss: Anything that appears terrifying but presents no danger; a paper tiger.
pos: noun
tags: figuratively
examples: VVith ſcoffes and ſcornes, and contumelious taunts,
 In open Market-place produc't they me,
 To be a publique ſpectacle to all:
 Here, ſayd they, is the Terror of the French,
 The Scar-Crovv that affrights our Children ſo.
The greateſt burden in the vvorld is ſuperſtition; not onely of Ceremonies in the Church, but of imaginary and ſcarcrovv ſins at home.
A ſcarecrow, ſet to frighten fools away; / Marriage has joys; and you ſhall have aſſay.
The Canada West Foundation dismisses these concerns as "political scarecrows"; fearsome at first glance but irrelevant on closer examination. Unfortunately the problems of an elected Senate cannot be dismissed so easily.
gloss: Military equipment or tactics used to scare and deter rather than cause actual damage.
pos: noun
tags: figuratively
historical
gloss: The black tern (Chlidonias niger).
pos: noun
tags: UK
dialectal
obsolete
gloss: The hooded crow (Corvus cornix).
pos: noun
tags: UK
dialectal
obsolete
gloss: To cause (a person, their body, etc.) to look awkward and stiff, like a scarecrow (noun sense 1).
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: It felt as though the house could keep disgorging debris forever, a tidal wave of unmatched slippers and dresses scarecrowed on hangers, and after sifting through it all we would still know nothing.
[H]is small frame seeming scarecrowed in the over-large black coat.
Because it was the end of the dry season, the trees were Seussian, their branches scarecrowing over lawns of brown grass.
In the mirror on the opposite wall he can see gray half-moons hanging under his eyes, his hair scarecrowing in tufts and waves.
gloss: To cause (a person, their body, etc.) to look awkward and stiff, like a scarecrow (noun sense 1).
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: With his stiff, awkward body, his knees bent, his arms scarecrowed far to either side, he had acted it all out, had been Adam trembling in the garden of his lost innocence, Moses on Sinai, Jahweh creating the heavens and the earth; […]
An arctic wind whooshes down Columbus Avenue like the IRT express, catching her bags, scarecrowing her arms, and threatening to take her broad-brimmed hat downtown.
He scarecrowed his arms. 'Disya belong to mi. Lang time mi wait fa dis. City nuh change.'
gloss: To frighten or terrify (someone or something), as if using a scarecrow.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: [T]hat old acquaintance, […] is neither lullabied with thy sweete Papp, nor ſcarre-crowed with thy ſower hatchet.
It has been said of Mr. [Welby] Pugin that he patronises bad drawing, and now we perceive that he patronises very queer perspective, and very bad colouring also; […] Could we fancy that the mode of representation adopted by the latter [Pugin] were so with the intention of scarecrowing people away from those drawings, there might be some policy in it; […]
Who is this ugly young man with large feet, scarecrowing the pretty birds from my crops?
[W]e weren't doing any harm, only going into the fields, and making ourselves scarecrows to the birds. […] Then when I went scarecrowing with the big ones, she'd [his mother would] lead me a terrible life when I got back, threatening to turn me out.
she leapt at their battering wings and i swung the broom. around and around i whirled, scarecrowing the demon birds, scrubbing my grandmother's words off the walls.
The herder, a seventeen-year-old boy named Hassan, the youngest son of a friend, scarecrowed madly in his blue robes to force the animals off the asphalt just in time for a silver SUV to whiz by toward Bamako.
gloss: To spoil the appearance of (something, such as the landscape or a view), as scarecrows may be regarded as doing.
pos: verb
tags: archaic
transitive
examples: Fatigued and hungry as our party were after a long drive through the desolate region of malaria, wild buffaloes, wild birds, and yet wilder specimens of the human race, which here and there scare-crow the broad, sadly picturesque expanse between the last cork-trees near Salerno, and the treeless vicinage of the temple of Neptune, we dared not venture upon fish with green bones,—the only dish served up for our repast; […] we all preferred bearing our hunger, and traversing a second time the fiery plain unrefreshed, to breaking our fast upon such suspicious diet; […]
Synonyms: bird-scarer
crow scarer
crowkeeper
frayboggard
gallicrow
gallybagger
malkin
mammet
potato-bogle
scare-beggar
scare-the-birds
scarecrow
Related words: clapper
Derived words: scarecrowish
scarecrowlike
scarecrowy
Translations:
lang: Finnish
word: saada näyttämään jäykältä