Scareware

noun, slang

noun, slang ·Uncommon ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Software that attempts to scare the user into compliance, as by displaying false warnings of virus infection. informal, uncountable

Example

More examples

"BitTorrent has been hit by scareware."

Etymology

From scare + -ware.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.