verb / noun
scare
SKAIR/sker/
Sudden fear caused by a perceived danger.
The woman scares the man by appearing suddenly in the doorway.
Etymology
Skirra could mean both frightening someone and shrinking from or shunning something. English preserves the fear-causing side of that range, with sudden terror already present in the early verb’s meaning.
In context
the technique is just to make noise, sometimes using a gun and shooting nearby to scare [music] the animal
More examples
- The loud bang gave us a scare.
- He scared the birds away from the seedlings.
- They have been scaring one another with ghost stories.
Forms
scare · scares · scared · scaring
scary adjective — Causing fear.