scary
Americanadjective
-
causing fright or alarm.
-
easily frightened; timid.
adjective
-
causing fear or alarm; frightening
-
easily roused to fear; timid
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.
My latest column, “The Big Scary Myth Stalking the Stock Market,” argues that the fears about overconcentration are overblown.
From The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 24, 2026
The previous record-holder for the largest known TDE -- an event nicknamed Scary Barbie -- was about 30 times weaker and involved a star only three to ten times the Sun's mass.
From Science Daily • Nov. 7, 2025
Scary winds and thunderstorms can be at one end of the lake, and calmer water and blue skies at the other.
From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 30, 2025
Scary but perhaps inevitable given Page reveals how three fortune tellers predicted she would become a writer.
From BBC • Jun. 4, 2025
He had been taken when the ruffians smoked out a band of rebels that he led from their hidings up in the Brockenbores by the hills of Scary.
From "The Return of the King" by J.R.R. Tolkien
Definitions 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.
