scary

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English

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Alternative forms

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Etymology 1

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From scare +‎ -y.

Pronunciation

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Adjective

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scary (comparative scarier, superlative scariest)

  1. (now chiefly informal) Causing fear or anxiety
    Synonyms: frightening, hair-raising, petrifying, terrifying; see also Thesaurus:frightening
    The tiger's jaws were scary.
    She was hiding behind her pillow during the scary parts of the film.
    • 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:
      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.
    • 1982, Anne Tyler, chapter 2, in Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant‎[1], New York: Ivy Books, published 1992, page 70:
      “ […] How scary it is to know that everyone I love depends on me! I’m afraid I’ll do something wrong.”
    • 2007 September 2, Terrence Rafferty, “Technicolor Dreamboat”, in The New York Times‎[2]:
      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.
    • 2020, Lesley L. Smith, A Jack For All Seasons, page 45:
      The biggest, scariest, scarriest man in the room said, “It's about time, Jones.”
  2. (informal) Uncannily striking or surprising.
    Linda changed her hair, and it’s scary how much she looks like her mother.
  3. (US, colloquial) Subject to sudden alarm; easily frightened.
    Synonyms: nervous, jumpy
    • 1823, James Fenimore Cooper, chapter 5, in The Pioneers‎[3], volume 2, New York: Charles Wiley, the UK edition of the same year has scary (p. 262)[4], page 77:
      “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. […] ”
    • 1867, John Greenleaf Whittier, The Tent on the Beach, and Other Poems‎[5], Boston: Ticknor and Fields, The Wreck of Rivermouth, page 25:
      “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.”
    • 1916, Texas Department of Agriculture, “Bulletin”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name), numbers 47-57, page 150:
      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.
    • 1940, Richard Wright, Native Son‎[6], book 1, London: Jonathan Cape, published 1970, page 10:
      The two brothers stood over the dead rat […] .
      “Please, Bigger, take ’im out,” Vera begged.
      “Aw, don’t be so scary,” Buddy said.
Derived terms
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Adverb

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scary (not comparable)

  1. (informal) To a scary extent; scarily.
    • 2010, Peter Corris, Torn Apart, Allen and Unwin, page 117:
      At 199 centimetres and a hundred kilos going up, he was scary big and he found work as a bouncer and enforcer[.]
    • 2020, S. Clarence Dodge, Beyond Blood: Inside the Mind of an Anesthesiologist‎[7], Xlibris Corporation:
      [T]he main reason I don't want to give her a GA is she's so scary fat!
Translations
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Etymology 2

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From dialectal English scare (“scraggy”).

Noun

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scary

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

Anagrams

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