Word.ws English Dictionary

frighten the life out of someone

frighten the life out of someone verb: to frighten someone very much.

Verb

frighten the life out of someone (third-person singular simple present frightens the life out of someone, present participle frightening the life out of someone, simple past and past participle frightened the life out of someone)

  1. To frighten someone very much.

Forms of frighten the life out of someone

third-person singular presentfrightens the life out of someone
present participlefrightening the life out of someone
past participlefrightened the life out of someone
pastfrightened the life out of someone

Questions about frighten the life out of someone

What does frighten the life out of someone mean?
Frighten the life out of someone means to frighten someone very much.
What part of speech is frighten the life out of someone?
Frighten the life out of someone is a verb.
What is the past tense of frighten the life out of someone?
The past tense of frighten the life out of someone is frightened the life out of someone.

Words near frighten the life out of someone in the dictionary

  1. fright-wigs
  2. frightable
  3. frighted
  4. frighten
  5. frighten the horses
  6. frighten the life out of someone
  7. frighten the piss out of
  8. frightenable
  9. frightened
  10. frightened rabbit
  11. frightened rabbits

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: frighten the life out of someone (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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