scary

Meanings

1. 1
   adj

   provoking fear terror

   a scary movie

2. 2
   adj

   Causing fear or anxiety

   The tiger's jaws were scary.

3. 3
   adj

   Uncannily striking or surprising.

   Linda changed her hair, and it’s scary how much she looks like her mother.

4. 4
   adj

   Subject to sudden alarm; easily frightened.

   “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. […]”

5. 5
   adv

   To a scary extent; scarily.

   At 199 centimetres and a hundred kilos going up, he was scary big and he found work as a bouncer and enforcer[.]

6. 6
   noun

   Barren land having only a thin coat of grass.

Etymology

From dialectal English scare (“scraggy”).