Scary
//ˈskɛə.ɹi// adj, adv, noun, slang
adj, adv, noun, slang ·Common ·High school level
Definitions
Noun
- 1 Barren land having only a thin coat of grass.
Adjective
- 1 Causing fear or anxiety informal
"The tiger's jaws were scary."
- 2 Uncannily striking or surprising. informal
"Linda changed her hair, and it’s scary how much she looks like her mother."
- 3 Subject to sudden alarm; easily frightened. US, colloquial
"“Whist! whist!” said Natty, in a low voice, on hearing a slight sound made by Elizabeth, in bending over the side of the canoe, in eager curiosity; “’tis a sceary animal, and it’s a far stroke for a spear. […]”"
Adjective
- 1 provoking fear or terror wordnet
Adverb
- 1 To a scary extent; scarily. informal, not-comparable
"At 199 centimetres and a hundred kilos going up, he was scary big and he found work as a bouncer and enforcer[.]"
Example
More examples"When everybody's crossing on a red, it's not so scary."
Etymology
Etymology 1
From scare + -y.
Etymology 2
From dialectal English scare (“scraggy”).
Related phrases
More for "scary"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.