scary
Americanadjective
-
scarier,
comparative
-
scariest
superlative
-
causing fright or alarm.
-
easily frightened; timid.
adjective
-
causing fear or alarm; frightening
-
easily roused to fear; timid
Other Word Forms
Adjective Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of scary
Explanation
If something is scary, it makes you afraid, or scared. Horror films — scary movies — are a very popular genre. Apparently people like to be frightened. Scary is more a more casual way to say "frightening," and you can also use it to describe something that's just bizarre or odd or exceptional: you've become such a good golfer, it's scary; or, you cleaned up you room so fast, it's scary. Note that there is no "e" in scary, even though the verb to scare ends in one.
Vocabulary lists containing scary
Florida's B.E.S.T. Common Suffixes: -y
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"Leapin' Lizards! Is That a Real Dragon?"
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Unit 18, Lesson 1
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Comparing today’s college sports environment of NIL deals with the 1980s, Hillman said, “It would have been scary what kind of money we could have gotten.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 18, 2026
"It helps me escape reality for a bit, being scared about something that is tangibly scary, like monsters or bats," she added.
From BBC ● Oct. 12, 2026
It’s a film for anyone who has put aside their desires and told themselves it’s too late or too scary to try something new.
From Salon ● Oct. 12, 2026
At HMP Gloucester, it is zombies that visitors must try and escape from as they walk past old prison cells, facing all sorts of scary encounters.
From BBC ● Oct. 12, 2026
My body was shaking, yet I was stiff, like whenever Dad let me watch scary movies.
From "Sir Fig Newton and the Science of Persistence" by Sonja Thomas
During the 1970s, San Fernando High football coach Bill Marsh created something scarier than Frankenstein: the wishbone offense.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 7, 2026
Did anything else happen today that is extremely relevant to this topic but in a much scarier way?
From Slate ● Aug. 4, 2026
The only thing scarier is the thought that Les Bleus haven’t yet hit their ceiling.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 1, 2026
Barker has no interest in shining some light on Nikki when keeping his woebegone protagonist in the dark is scarier.
From Salon ● Jun. 4, 2026
He had his head shaved, and that made him scarier.
From "Everything Sad Is Untrue" by Daniel Nayeri
You can’t depend on it as a kind of law-enforcing mechanism, and that may be the scariest thing of all.
From Salon ● Oct. 16, 2026
“This was one of, if not the scariest experience of my life. Especially since Jonathan was in Indy for practices.”
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 28, 2026
Mets interim manager Andy Green told reporters after the game that it “feels at this point in time like we’ve avoided the scariest outcomes.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 18, 2026
“We’re diving under the water and grabbing these big old catfish. It was one of the scariest things I’ve ever done.”
From Slate ● Sep. 17, 2026
The older she got, the more human her parents seemed, and that was one of the scariest things in the world.
From "Far from the Tree" by Robin Benway
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Get a wordDefinitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
