I. scare 1 /skeə $ sker/ BrE AmE verb
[ Word Family: adjective : ↑ scared , ↑ scary ; verb : ↑ scare ; noun : ↑ scare ]
[ Date: 1100-1200 ; Language: Old Norse ; Origin: skirra , from skjarr 'shy, fearful' ]
1 . [transitive] to make someone feel frightened SYN frighten ⇨ afraid :
Loud noises can scare animals or birds.
scare the life/living daylights/hell etc out of somebody (=scare someone very much)
The alarm scared the hell out of me.
scare the pants off somebody (=scare someone very much)
2 . scare easily to be frightened by things that are not very frightening:
I don’t scare easily, you know.
scare somebody into something phrasal verb
to make someone do something by frightening them or threatening them
scare somebody into doing something
You can’t scare me into telling you anything.
scare somebody/something ↔ off/away phrasal verb
1 . to make an animal or person go away by frightening them:
She moved quietly to avoid scaring the birds away.
2 . to make someone uncertain or worried so that they do not do something they were going to do:
Rising prices are scaring off many potential customers.
scare something ↔ up phrasal verb American English informal
to make something although you have very few things to make it from:
Let me see if I can scare up something for you to eat.
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THESAURUS
▪ frighten to make someone feel afraid:
The thought of being in court frightened him.
▪ scare especially spoken to frighten someone. Scare is less formal than frighten , and is the usual word to use in everyday English:
He was driving fast just to scare us.
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It scared him to think that his mother might never recover.
▪ terrify to make someone feel extremely frightened:
The idea of going down into the caves terrified her.
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Robbers terrified bank staff by threatening them at gunpoint.
▪ give somebody a fright to make someone suddenly feel frightened in a way that makes their heart beat more quickly:
It gave me a terrible fright when I found him unconscious on the floor.
▪ give somebody the creeps if a person or place gives you the creeps, they make you feel slightly frightened because they are strange:
This house gives me the creeps.
▪ startle to frighten someone. Used when you suddenly see someone and did not know they were there, or when you suddenly hear something:
I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.
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The noise startled him, and he dropped his glass on the floor.
▪ alarm to make someone feel frightened and worried that something bad might happen:
I didn’t want to alarm her by calling in the middle of the night.
▪ intimidate to deliberately frighten someone, especially so that they will do what you want:
Many of the gangs were using dogs to intimidate people.
II. scare 2 BrE AmE noun
[ Word Family: adjective : ↑ scared , ↑ scary ; verb : ↑ scare ; noun : ↑ scare ]
1 . [singular] a sudden feeling of fear:
You really gave us a scare!
2 . [countable] a situation in which a lot of people become frightened about something:
a bomb scare
a health scare