scareverb [ I or T ]
uk/skeər/us/sker/C1 to (make a person or animal) feel frightened:
Sudden noises scare her.
She's very brave - she doesn't scare easily.
He scared me out of my wits (= made me extremely frightened) by driving so fast.
Meeting new people scares me stiff/to death (= makes me extremely nervous and worried).
She scared the hell/life/living daylights out of me (= frightened me very much) when she fell out of the tree.
Thesaurus: synonyms and related words
Frightening and scaring
- chill
- chill sb to the bone/marrow idiom
- cow
- creep
- curdle
- daylight
- flesh
- frighten
- make your flesh crawl/creep idiom
- overawe
- petrify
- put the fear of God into you idiom
- put/get the wind up sb idiom
- send
- send chills down/up sb's spine idiom
- send shivers down/up sb's spine idiom
- send shudders/a shudder down your spine idiom
- shiver
- shiver (up and) down your spine idiom
- wit
See more results »
Idiom(s)
scare sb shitless
Phrasal verb(s)
scare sb/sth away/off
scare sb away/off
scare sb into doing sth
scare sth up
scarenoun
uk/skeər/us/sker/[ S ] a sudden feeling of fear or worry:
I got/had a scare (= I was very worried) when I looked at my bank statement this morning!
You gave us a real scare (= frightened us) when you fainted, you know.
[ C ] an occasion when a subject receives a lot of public attention and worries many people, often when there is no real danger:
a bomb/health scare
The government are accused of employing scare tactics (= ways of frightening people in order to persuade them to do something).
The papers have been publishing scare stories (= newspaper reports which make people feel unnecessarily worried) about the mystery virus.
Thesaurus: synonyms and related words
Fear & phobias
- acrophobia
- aerophobia
- agoraphobic
- alarm
- arachnophobia
- bogey
- chill
- claustrophobia
- cold sweat
- fearful
- fright
- homophobia
- horror
- hydrophobia
- hydrophobic
- panic
- panic stations
- phobia
- terror
- xenophobe
See more results »