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scary

adj
/ˈskɛə.ɹi/UK/ˈskɛə.ɹi/US/ˈskeːɹi/

Etymology

From dialectal English scare (“scraggy”).

  1. derived from *(s)ker-✻ — “to swing, jump, move”
  2. derived from *skirzijaną✻ — “to shoo, scare off”
  3. derived from skirra — “to frighten; to shrink away from, shun; to prevent, avert”
  4. inherited from scaren
  5. formed as scary — “scare + -y”

Definitions

  1. Causing fear or anxiety

    • The tiger's jaws were scary.
    • She was hiding behind her pillow during the scary parts of the film.
    • He watched Conjuring but it was too scary for him.

  2. Uncannily striking or surprising.

    • Linda changed her hair, and it’s scary how much she looks like her mother.

  3. Subject to sudden alarm

    Subject to sudden alarm; easily frightened.

    • “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. […]”
    • “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.”
    • 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.
  4. ›+ 2 more definitions

    1. To a scary extent

      To a scary extent; scarily.

      • At 199 centimetres and a hundred kilos going up, he was scary big and he found work as a bouncer and enforcer[.]
      • [T]he main reason I don't want to give her a GA is she's so scary fat!

    2. Barren land having only a thin coat of grass.

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for scary. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA