scare straight
scare straight verb: to frighten (someone) to such a degree that a significant improvement in behavior results.
Verb
scare straight (third-person singular simple present scares straight, present participle scaring straight, simple past and past participle scared straight)
- To frighten (someone) to such a degree that a significant improvement in behavior results.
- Indeed, there is a streak of Reaganomics that believes the only way to motivate American workers is to scare them straight with unemployment charts.1982 September 3, Ellen Goodman, “Work ethic remains strong as ever”, in Spokesman-Review, Spokane, USA, retrieved 13 Feb 2013, page 4
- Thomas credited the boot camp for scaring him straight.2005 March 16, Pete Thamel, “Scared Straight Into the Courts of Basketball”, in New York Times, retrieved 13 Feb 2013
Forms of scare straight
| third-person singular present | scares straight |
|---|---|
| present participle | scaring straight |
| past participle | scared straight |
| past | scared straight |
Questions about scare straight
- What does scare straight mean?
- Scare straight means to frighten (someone) to such a degree that a significant improvement in behavior results.
- What part of speech is scare straight?
- Scare straight is a verb.
- What is the past tense of scare straight?
- The past tense of scare straight is scared straight.
Words near scare straight in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: scare straight (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.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-scare straight.ogg.
Cite this entry: “scare straight.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/scare_straight. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.