SCARE

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does scare mean? 

• SCARE (noun)
  The noun SCARE has 2 senses:

1. sudden mass fear and anxiety over anticipated events

2. a sudden attack of fear

  Familiarity information: SCARE used as a noun is rare.

• SCARE (verb)
  The verb SCARE has 2 senses:

1. cause fear in

2. cause to lose courage

  Familiarity information: SCARE used as a verb is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• SCARE (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Sudden mass fear and anxiety over anticipated events

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Synonyms:

panic; scare

Context example:

a bomb scare led them to evacuate the building

Hypernyms ("scare" is a kind of...):

anxiety; anxiousness ((psychiatry) a relatively permanent state of worry and nervousness occurring in a variety of mental disorders, usually accompanied by compulsive behavior or attacks of panic)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "scare"):

red scare (a period of general fear of communists)

Derivation:

scare (cause to lose courage)

scary (provoking fear terror)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A sudden attack of fear

Classified under:

Nouns denoting feelings and emotions

Synonyms:

panic attack; scare

Hypernyms ("scare" is a kind of...):

fear; fearfulness; fright (an emotion experienced in anticipation of some specific pain or danger (usually accompanied by a desire to flee or fight))

Derivation:

scare (cause fear in)

scary (provoking fear terror)

• SCARE (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they scare    ... he / she / it scares   
Past simple: scared   
Past participle: scared   
-ing form: scaring   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Cause fear in

Classified under:

Verbs of feeling

Synonyms:

affright; fright; frighten; scare

Context example:

Ghosts could never affright her

Hypernyms (to "scare" is one way to...):

excite; shake; shake up; stimulate; stir (stir the feelings, emotions, or peace of)

Cause:

dread; fear (be afraid or scared of; be frightened of)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "scare"):

bluff (frighten someone by pretending to be stronger than one really is)

awe (inspire awe in)

terrify; terrorise; terrorize (fill with terror; frighten greatly)

intimidate (make timid or fearful)

alarm; appal; appall; dismay; horrify (fill with apprehension or alarm; cause to be unpleasantly surprised)

consternate (fill with anxiety, dread, dismay, or confusion)

spook (frighten or scare, and often provoke into a violent action)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s somebody
Something ----s somebody

Sentence examples:

Sam cannot scare Sue
The bad news will scare him

Derivation:

scare (a sudden attack of fear)

scarer (an effigy in the shape of a man to frighten birds away from seeds)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Cause to lose courage

Classified under:

Verbs of feeling

Synonyms:

dash; daunt; frighten away; frighten off; pall; scare; scare away; scare off

Context example:

dashed by the refusal

Hypernyms (to "scare" is one way to...):

intimidate (to compel or deter by or as if by threats)

Sentence frame:

Something ----s somebody

Sentence example:

The performance is likely to scare Sue

Derivation:

scare (sudden mass fear and anxiety over anticipated events)

 Context examples 

But the squirrel was as badly scared.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

I approached this tremendous being; I dared not again raise my eyes to his face, there was something so scaring and unearthly in his ugliness.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

God bless her, she is as easily scared as a bird, said I. It might be!

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

But this was his first editor, and under the circumstances he did not desire to scare him too abruptly.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

But the trifles cost more than one would imagine, and when she cast up her accounts at the end of the month the sum total rather scared her.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

"Perhaps I have, but I'm scared just the same," said the Lion.

(The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum)

The two men looked at each other with a scare.

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

I was heeled also, and I held up my gun to scare him off and let me get away.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Thomas Mugridge turned a pitiable scared face.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

The men were scared every time we turned our electric lamp on them, and fell on their knees and prayed.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)