▪ I. † scare, n.1 Obs.
[a. ONF. escar, var. of escarn (Central OF. eschar(n), vbl. n. f. escarnir to deride. Cf. scorn n. and v. The final e may be the ending of the dative case.]
Scorn, derision, contempt.
| c 1205 Lay. 5835 Þanne we heonne i-funde farren ure frenden to scare. Ibid. 20746 Iswenched us sære folke to scare. Ibid. 29548 He talde heom godes leore and duden him to scare. |
▪ II. scare, n.2
(skɛə(r))
Also 6–7 scarre, 7 skar(e, 9 dial. scar.
[f. scare v.]
† 1. Fear, dread. Obs.
| a 1400–50 Alexander 4731 And þai for skere of þe skrike into þe schaw fledd. 1578 T. N. tr. Conq. W. India 21 They would sell him no provision for scare of the Governour Velasques. 1616 T. Scot Philomythie i. (ed. 2) C 4 b, The night is come, the Shepheard soundly sleeps As he had wont, no skar his conscience keeps. |
2. An act of scaring or a state of being scared; a sudden fright or alarm; esp. a state of general or public alarm occasioned by baseless or exaggerated rumours; occas. in generalized use, panic.
| a 1548 Hall Chron., Rich. III, 39 They were sodaynely amased and striken with a soden scare. 1600 Holland Livy viii. xxxvii. 308 At Rome there happened a scare by night, which raised euery man so suddainely out of their first sleepe. c 1610 Sir J. Melvil Mem. (1683) 70 This I said by the way to give her a little scare from marriage. 1664 Pepys Diary 25 Nov., God knows this is only a scare to the Parliament, to make them give the more money. 1721 Hearne Collect. (O.H.S.) VII. 280 He was seiz'd upon the Scare of the Popish Plot. 1844 G. W. Kendall Santa Fé Exped. I. 97 Nothing can exceed the grandeur of the scene when a large cavallada, or drove of horse, takes a ‘scare’. 1881 Standard 4 Jan., We are evidently to have another Fenian scare. 1887 Fenn Master Cerem. xiv, You did give me a scare. 1898 Westm. Gaz. 22 Feb. 8/1 The time to buy stocks is when prices are depressed by scare. |
† 3. Something that scares or frightens; spec. a scarecrow. Obs.
| 1530 Palsgr. 265/2 Scarre to scar crowes. 1607 Markham Caval. ii. (1617) 12 When you make an old ridden horse lead you the way where there bee manie Scarres and Boggards. 1620 ― Farew. Husb. (1625) 96 The nearer that these Blinkes or Scarres come to the ground..so much the better it is, lest the fowle finding a way to creep under them, begin not to respect them. 1824 Loudon Encycl. Gard. (ed. 2) §1483 Engines of alarm, or scares, are the bell or gong alarm for man; and the rattle-engine driven by hand, or a small wind-engine for herds. 1828 M'Dowall Poems 71 Rather hold him up a bug-bear or scar. |
4. attrib. and Comb.: scare-buying U.S. = panic buying s.v. panic n.2 3 b; scare-head, -heading, a heading to a column of newspaper matter written in extravagant language to produce a ‘scare’; hence as v. trans., to furnish with a scare-head; to display as a scare-headline; ˈscare-headed ppl. a.; scare-line, a sensational announcement upon a newspaper poster; similarly in scare-headline, scare-letter, scare-novel, scare-politics, scare-report, scare-story, etc.; scare-string, an arrangement of twine on and about seed-plots and fruit-trees to frighten away birds; scare tactic, a stratagem or ruse which seeks to manipulate public reaction by the exploitation of fear; usu. pl.
| 1944 Sun (Baltimore) 23 Nov. 15/3 The sharply restricted supply of cotton goods..comes at a time when so-called ‘*scare’ buying of such commodities is in boom proportions. 1959 Wall St. Jrnl. 4 May 1/1 Steel customers have been buying heavily for weeks, in anticipation of a strike... This ‘scare buying’..boosted steel-making to a scheduled 94·4% of the industry's rated capacity last week. |
| 1887 Courier-Jrnl. (Louisville, Kentucky) 15 Feb. 6/4 The ‘*scare’ head which follows..is an evidence that the country paper tries hard to keep pace with the times and its metropolitan contemporary. 1888 Pall Mall G. 29 Oct. 3/1 A Japanese newspaper..has no such thing as head lines or scare heads. 1894 Stead If Christ came 104 The sensationalists who manufacture scare heads for the Chicago papers. 1902 F. Norris Responsibilities of Novelist (1903) 300 The name of the leading lady or leading man is ‘scare-headed’ [on theatre bills]. 1911 H. S. Harrison Queed xviii. 219 The..penny evening paper..scare⁓headed a jaundiced account of the affair. 1926 Scribner's Mag. Sept. 251/1 If he is at all impressionable, a glance at the scare-heads will utterly ruin what otherwise might have been a successful day. 1951 E. Paul Springtime in Paris v. 95 Metal workers were uneasy, having been stamped with scareheads against the Marshall Plan. 1971 Sci. Amer. May 10/2 Professor Reuterdahl's recent article in the Dearborn Independent is given its real place by the scare-head of the cover, which asks, in 3/4-inch letters, ‘Is Einstein a Plagiarist?’. |
| 1889 W. D. Howells Hazard of New Fortunes II. 281 He read..the deeply *scare-headed story of Conrad's death. |
| 1894 Daily News 15 Mar. 5/8 The men who manufacture *scare headings for the paper saw the chance, and they worked up a great sensation. |
| 1892 J. Kirkland Story of Chicago i. xxxii. 381 The newspapers blazed with what are technically called ‘*scare headlines’. 1912 Kipling Uses of Reading in Bk. of Words (1928) 87 The other made bad worse by shouting what was no better than a newspaper scare head-line. |
| 1907 Westm. Gaz. 25 Mar. 9/3 When we members want to stimulate our jaded senses we go into the street and read the *scare-lines on some of the posters. |
| 1960 Guardian 11 Apr. 1/1 Rumours circulated..that the Government might introduce martial law, but this appeared to have been purely a *scare story. 1977 P. Johnson Enemies of Society vii. 94 The technique of the lobby is to put out a scare-story, and then move on quickly to a fresh one when scientific investigation proves the first one unfounded. 1979 Time 8 Jan. 40/1 The scare stories are based on phony evidence or plain prejudice. |
| 1889 A. T. Pask Eyes of Thames 151 The young birds pay little heed to the *scare strings, and pull up the seedlings to their heart's content. |
| 1967 Punch 8 Nov. 719/1 This alleged address from Zinoviev, the President of the Comintern..left an Angst about Tory *scare-tactics from which Transport House has never recovered. 1973 Black Panther 17 Mar. 8/1 (caption) Boxes of poisoned lettuce have had to be destroyed. This is no ‘scare tactic’, it is for real. 1976 Survey Summer-Autumn 191 The slickers in the Pentagon are using their annual scare tactics in support of bigger budgets. |
▸ scare quotes n. quotation marks used to foreground a particular word or phrase, esp. with the intention of disassociating the user from the expression or from some implied connotation it carries.
| 1956 Mind 65 3 The ‘*scare-quotes’ are mine; Aristotle is not overtly discussing the expression ‘whichever happens’. 1960P. T. Geach in M. Brand Nature of Human Action (1970) 119 Someone..might use ‘happy’, in scare-quotes so to say, to mean ‘what most people count happy, that is rich’. 2001 Isis 92 177/2 Magnetism, we are told, was a discipline at the crossroad of science and ‘pre-science’ (her scare quotes) at the end of the sixteenth century. |
▪ III. † scare, n.3 Obs. rare.
See also scar n.4
[a. F. scare, ad. L. scarus.]
= Scarus.
| 1706 Phillips (ed. Kersey), Scare, a sort of Fish. 1803 Shaw Gen. Zool. IV. 488 Scare Labrus..Labrus Scarus. |
▪ IV. scare, n.4 Golf.
(skɛə(r))
[orig. Sc. dial., a joint or splice (e.g. of a fishing-rod: see E.D.D.), a. ON. skǫr (:—*skaru:—OTeut. *skarā).]
The part of a golf club where the head joins the handle.
| 1881 Forgan Golfer's Handbk. 35 Scare, the narrow part of the club-head by which it is glued to the handle. 1897 Encycl. Sport I. 473/1 (Golf) Scare, the part of the club where the head and shaft are joined. |
▪ V. scare, a. rare.
(skɛə(r))
[modernized form of scar a., after scare v.]
Timid, frightened.
| 1885–94 R. Bridges Eros & Psyche Dec. iii, But ere Her tale was done resumed his manner scare, Ran down, and on his way in darkness kept. |
▪ VI. scare, v.
(skɛə(r))
Pa. tense and pple. scared (skɛəd). Forms: α. 3–6 skerre, 4 Sc. sckir; β. 6–7 scarre, 5–7 skar, 5–8 scar, 6–7 skarre, 7 Sc. scarr, skarr, 7–9 Sc. scaur; pa. tense and pa. pple. 4 Sc. schard, 4, 6–9 scarred, 5 scharid, 5–7 skard, 6 scard, Sc. skarred, skarrit, 9 dial. scart; γ. 4–5 scere, 5 skere, 6 skeare; 9 dial. (and U.S. vulgar) skear, skeer; δ. 4–5 skayre, 5–7 skare, 6– scare; pa. pple. 7 skaerd.
[ME. skerre, a. ON. skirra (Icel. only in phr. skirra vandræðum to avoid strife, and refl. skirra-sk with accus. to shrink from; but cf. Norw. skjerra, Sw. dial. skjarra to scare), f. skiarr (:—*skerro-) shy, timid, startled: see scar a.
The ME. skerre normally became skarre; the form scar, now dialectal, is therefore regular. The phonology of the δ type (represented by the mod. standard form), and of the γ type (represented by the dialectal skeer) is obscure.]
1. a. trans. To frighten, terrify.
| α c 1200 Ormin 676 He [sc. the devil] wile himm færenn, ȝiff he maȝȝ, & skerrenn mare & mare. c 1375 Sc. Leg. Saints xxv. (Julian) 595 Þat takine þe feyndis sckiris, & of þar mycht & purpos merrys. |
| β 1508 Dunbar Flyting 214 Cum thow agane to skar us with thy strais, We sall gar scale our sculis all the to scorne. 1568 Grafton Chron. II. 90 King Richard so scarred the French kinges host, that he tooke the kinges Sumpter horse and parte of his treasure. 1606 Shakes. Tr. & Cr. v. x. 21 There is a word will..Scarre Troy out of it selfe. 1671 J. Flavel Fount. Life xi. 31 When they should find themselves more skarred than hurt by His Threats. 1721 Ramsay Concl. 6 Daft, giddy thing! to..spang o'er dykes that scar the blate. 1901 G. Douglas Ho. Green Shutters 279 He never met what scaured him! |
| γ a 1400–50 Alexander 3865 Þan comes þare-out creuesses of manykins hewis, Scorpions þaim to scere & scalid neddirs. c 1440 Promp. Parv. 457/2 Skeryn' a-wey, abigo. 1558 T. Phaer æneid Y 4 b, Now gastly sights mens hearts to skeare, In forgyng fire they shope. 1845 Judd Margaret ii. v. (1874) 254 Don't be so despit skeered, Mr. Hadlock. |
| δ 1591 Shakes. 1 Hen. VI, ii. ii. 28 My selfe, as farre as I could well discerne,..Am sure I scar'd the Dolphin and his Trull. 1596 Warner Alb. Eng. xii. lxix. (1612) 291 At first she feares, but lastly finds the Armor was vn-man'd: When skaerd, and cheerd, with Dorcas she did enter, theare at hand. a 1639 W. Whately Prototypes i. xi. (1640) 107 Let not every shew of danger skare you. 1686 tr. Chardin's Trav. Persia 165 Such dreadful Precipices, that scar'd me to look down. 1700 T. Brown Amusem. Ser. & Com. 37, I that am always more scared at the sight of a Sergeant, or Bayliff, than at the Devil and all his Works. 1738 Gray Propertius iii. 44 The triple dog that scares the shadowy kind. 1810 Scott Lady of L. ii. xxx, A thousand villages in flames Shall scare the slumbers of King James! 1825 J. Neal Bro. Jonathan I. 104 Ye wasn't skeered, nor nothin' was ye tho'? a 1839 Praed Poems (1864) II. 12 Who scared me with that Gorgon face? 1864 Blackmore Clara Vaughan (1872) 50 Turning to me, ‘Doon'e be skeared, Miss Clerer.’ 1875 Jowett Plato (ed. 2) V. 505 Such practices..scare the multitude out of their wits. |
† b. ? To alarm, put on the alert (a sentry). Obs.
| 13.. E.E. Allit. P. B. 838 In grete flokkez of folk, þay fallen to his ȝatez, As a scowte wach scarred, so þe asscry rysed. a 1400 Morte Arth. 2468 Discoueris of schottemene, and skyrmys a lyttille; Skayres thaire skottefers, and theire skowtte-waches. c 1425 Cast. Persev. 1907 in Macro Plays 134 Schapyth now ȝoure scheldys schene, ȝene skallyd skoutis for to skerre up-on ȝone grene grese! |
c. To frighten away, drive off. Now chiefly with adv., exc. with reference to keeping off birds from corn, etc.
| c 1400 Destr. Troy 13404 This Ascatus with skathe skerrit of his rewme Pelleus. c 1450 Mankind 800 in Macro Plays 29 He skaryth ws with a bales; we may no lengere tary. 1573 Tusser Husb. (1878) 125 Keepe cart gap weele, scare hog from wheele. 1641 Milton Reform. i. 4 Being scarr'd from thence by the pangs, and gripes of a boyling conscience. 1660 F. Brooke tr. Le Blanc's Trav. 237 They were soon scared away, when we assured them we were Christians. 1785 Burns Death & Dr. Hornbook xiii, Mony a scheme in vain's been laid To stap or scaur me. 1816 Scott Antiq. xxvi, Ou, that wad be the lights and the noise that scarr'd us awa. 1851 D. Jerrold St. Giles xii. 114 A chap, with rags on him, not fit to scare birds in a bean-field. |
d. scare out, up. orig. and chiefly U.S. To frighten (game) out of cover. Hence fig. to bring to light, to discover; to procure, obtain, ‘rustle up’. colloq.
| 1846 Spirit of Times 25 Apr. 97/1 He is also to send us the rattles of the biggest snake ever scared up in ‘Old Norf Caline’. 1852 H. C. Watson Nights in Block-House 169 Ad was equal to two or three common men in scarin' up and shootin' red-skins. 1853 Putnam's Mag. Sept. 304/2 A great man..does not make the noodles and nobodies that he may scare up any where, his chief agents. 1857 The States (Washington) (Bartlett 1860), A very useful bag in a family, in scaring up eggs for breakfast. 1862 Lowell Biglow P. Ser. ii. iii, Where can you scare up names like them among your mudsill folks? 1874 Long Amer. Wild-fowl Shooting 142 We probably won't scare out any very large batches of ducks. 1890 Stock Grower & Farmer 1 Feb. 4/2 A country the like of which can not be ‘scared up’ in many thousands of miles travel. 1913 J. London Night-Born 262 Los Angeles must be on the dink when this is the best you can scare up. 1922 Galsworthy Loyalties ii. ii. 71 Let's cut it and get out to Nairobi. I can scare up the money for that. 1940 New Yorker 13 Jan. 31/2 A young woman who had somehow contrived to scare up a permit to leave the country. 1952 J. Jones From Here to Eternity xii. 145 Maybe I can scare you up some [work]. 1961 Listener 2 Nov. 738/1 Professor Ford has always managed to scare up a few distinguished contributors. 1976 H. Nielsen Brink of Murder ii. 21 Why don't you relax..and then we'll scare up some dinner. |
† 2. intr. To take fright; to be scared (at). Obs.
| β 13.. E.E. Allit P. B. 598 Bot of þe dome of þe douþe for dedez of schame He is so skoymus of þat skaþe, he scarrez bylyue. c 1470 Henryson Mor. Fab. ix. (Wolf & Fox) iii, I am rad, gif thay me se on far, That at my figure beist and bird will skar. 1500–20 Dunbar Poems xxx. 6 With him and with his abbeit bayth I skarrit, Lyk to ane man that with a gaist wes marrit. a 1605 Montgomerie Devot. Poems vi. 62 Then prayers, almesdeids, and tearis, Vhilks ȝit to skorne ȝee skantly skar, Sall mair availl than jaks and spearis. 1629 Sir W. Mure True Crucifixe 1775 Thou must not skarre vpon thy Soares to looke, To read thy dittay in that sacred Booke. 1682 Peden Lord's Trumpet 30 Scar not at the cross for it is the way to the crown. 1710 in Calderwood Dying Testim. (1806) 157 What ails poor harlot Scotland to scar so much at that noble gift. 1721 Wodrow Hist. Suff. Ch. Scot. (1829) I. i. iv. 358 He cried with a loud voice, ‘I beseech you..not to scar at sufferings for the interests of Christ.’ |
| δ 1699 T. Boston Art of Man-fishing (1900) 52 Every parish will scare at thee as a monster of men. 1731 ― Mem. (1899) 48 Being everywhere scared at by some. 1869 ‘Mark Twain’ Innoc. Abr. 440 This creature has scared at everything he has seen to-day. |
3. To take a scare (see scare n.2); to be alarmed by rumours or the like. Freq. in negative, esp. with easily or easy.
| 1900 Academy 8 Sept. 194/1 The big depositors wouldn't scare. 1941 Sun (Baltimore) 4 Jan. 6/2 Whatever else they do or fail to do, the Irish don't scare easily. 1951 ‘M. Spillane’ One Lonely Night iv. 61 They're the kind of people who scare easily. 1967 O. Ruhen in Coast to Coast 1965–6 192 The horse won't scare, but take it easy. 1972 Village Voice (N.Y.) 1 June 5/2 ‘We don't scare easy,’ his cousin said as I went out the door. |
4. Comb. with an object-n., forming ns. with the sense ‘one who or something which scares’, as scare-bear, scare-beggar, scare-bullfinch, scare-christian, scare-goose, scare-sinner, scare sleep.
| 1843 P. Parley's Ann. IV. 216 Logs hung vibrating from the branches of trees, and other *scare-bears. |
| 1806 Sporting Mag. XXVII. 186 He..is the *scare-beggar of the parish. |
| 1849 Zoologist VII. 2568 A stuffed cat..has been found a capital *scare-bullfinch. |
| 1772 Nugent tr. Hist. Friar Gerund I. 455 Whom he esteemed the most redoubted *Scare-christian that dignified the pulpit in that age. |
| 1887 R. Garnett Carlyle iv. 67 Letters poured in, countermanding subscriptions until the *scaregoose should be removed. |
| 1765 Sterne Tr. Shandy VII. vii, Do stop that death-looking, long-striding scoundrel of a *scare-sinner, who is posting after me. |
| 1817 Kirby & Sp. Entomol. (1818) II. 401 The great lantern-fly..from its noise in the evening..is called *Scare-sleep by the Dutch in Guiana. |
▪ VII. scare
obs. form of shear.