scary
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Pronunciation
- IPA: UK /ˈskeə.ri/, US /ˈsker.i/[1]
Etymology
It is formed from English scare + -y, from the noun scare.[2][3][4] It is also spelled scarey.[2][5]
Earliest recorded meaning
Terrifying, causing fright: 1582 in the OED and MWU, the 1580s in Etymonline.[6][4][2]
Semantic evolution
The sense “easily frightened, timid” is from 1800 and is originally and chiefly North American;[6][2] in this sense it was formerly sometimes written skeery or skeary.[2] The EDD records scary in Scots and northern English dialects, and in American use.[7] The SOED labels the word colloquial,[3] and in American campus slang it has also meant “good” (1969).[8]
Timeline
Modern meaning
Adjective
- (informal) Frightening; causing fear or alarm.
- Easily frightened; timid.
Word family
- scarily
- scariness
Related words
- scare
- scarecrow
References
- ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
- ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
- ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
- ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
- ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
- ^ a b c d Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
- ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
- ^ a b Dalzell, Tom; Victor, Terry, eds. (2013), The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, 2nd ed., London: Routledge