Word.ws English Dictionary

scare the pants off

scare the pants off verb: to scare or startle someone thoroughly.

Verb

scare the pants off (third-person singular simple present scares the pants off, present participle scaring the pants off, simple past and past participle scared the pants off)

  1. (idiomatic, slang) To scare or startle someone thoroughly.
    • He liked the water rides, but the big roller-coaster scared the pants off him.
    Synonyms:
    scare someone's pants off

Synonyms of scare the pants off

  • scare someone's pants off

Forms of scare the pants off

third-person singular presentscares the pants off
present participlescaring the pants off
past participlescared the pants off
pastscared the pants off

Questions about scare the pants off

What does scare the pants off mean?
Scare the pants off means to scare or startle someone thoroughly.
What part of speech is scare the pants off?
Scare the pants off is a verb.
What is the past tense of scare the pants off?
The past tense of scare the pants off is scared the pants off.

Words near scare the pants off in the dictionary

  1. scare the hell out of
  2. scare the hoes
  3. scare the horses
  4. scare the life out of
  5. scare the living daylights out of
  6. scare the pants off
  7. scare the shit out of
  8. scare up
  9. scare-babe
  10. scare-babes
  11. scare-beggar

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: scare the pants off (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 the pants off.ogg.

Cite this entry: “scare the pants off.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/scare_the_pants_off. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.