scare

1. 1.

   cause fear in

   “The stranger who hangs around the building frightens me”

   “Ghosts could never affright her”

   Synonymsfrightenfrightaffright

   Broaderstimulate

   Narrowerbluffaweterrifyintimidatedismayconsternatespook
2. 2.

   cause to lose courage

   “dashed by the refusal”

   Synonymsdauntdashscare offpallfrighten offscare awayfrighten away

   Broaderintimidate

Other forms of scare

plural

scares·

past tense

scared·

present participle

scaring·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about scare

What does scare mean?

scare means "sudden mass fear and anxiety over anticipated events". That is the primary sense; the word has 4 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in scare?

scare has 1 syllable: scare. In IPA it is /ˈskɛɹ/.

What is another word for scare?

Close synonyms include panic, panic attack, frighten, fright, affright. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is scare a common word?

scare is banded "Common" — everyday vocabulary in speech and writing. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.