Word.ws English Dictionary

scare line

scare line noun: a long rope, cable, or other line that is used to frighten fish into an area where they are more easily caught using other gear.

Noun

scare line (plural scare lines)

  1. A long rope, cable, or other line that is used to frighten fish into an area where they are more easily caught using other gear.
    • A scare line (burinawa), several hundred fathoms long, would be cast in a straight line across the current, often several kilometres from land on a flat and sandy bottom. It would be kept close to the bottom by sinkers.1995, Arne Kalland, Fishing Villages in Tokugawa, Japan, →ISBN, page 106
    • A long scare line made of short pieces of chain is stretched from bow to bow of the dug-outs and the entire device is paddled or poled slowly along the backwaters. The mullets frightened by the scare line, leap wildly into the air and get caught either in the net or in the tangle of twigs.2003, NIIR Board of Consultants & Engineers, Handbook on Fisheries and Aquaculture Technology, →ISBN, page 127
  2. A phrase or message used as a headline or quote that distorts the facts in order to alarm the reader or listener.
    • Recently I heard a typical radio ad trying to frighten people into purchasing long-term care insurance. The big scare line was that “three out of five Americans will need institutional care, which can cost $60,000 per year."2004, Ralph Warner, Get a Life: You Don't Need a Million to Retire Well
    • By 2002, it had one scare line on almost every issue. Like: “It's Common, It Can Kill. Why Aren't Doctors Telling Us about This Women-Only Disease?"2007, Myrna Blyth, Spin Sisters: How the Women of the Media Sell Unhappiness, →ISBN

Examples of scare line in a sentence

  • For the scare line, coconut fronds are wound round a rope which is set around a large area to be fished.2008, Otto Gabriel, Klaus Lange, Erdmann Dahm, Fish Catching Methods of the World, →ISBN, page 306:
  • Another boat, with an outboard motor, drove back and forwards just behind the scare line to add to the disturbance and to pass instructions between boats.2008, Ian G. Cowx, Management and Ecology of Lake and Reservoir Fisheries, →ISBN, page 189:

Forms of scare line

pluralscare lines
alternative formscare-line

Questions about scare line

What does scare line mean?
Scare line means a long rope, cable, or other line that is used to frighten fish into an area where they are more easily caught using other gear.
How do you use scare line in a sentence?
For the scare line, coconut fronds are wound round a rope which is set around a large area to be fished.
What part of speech is scare line?
Scare line is a noun.
What is the plural of scare line?
The plural of scare line is scare lines.

Words near scare line in the dictionary

  1. scare campaign
  2. scare campaigns
  3. scare chord
  4. scare chords
  5. scare into
  6. scare line
  7. scare lines
  8. scare off
  9. scare quote
  10. scare quotes
  11. scare someone out of their mind

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: scare line (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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