Word.ws English Dictionary

scareware

scareware noun: software that attempts to scare the user into compliance, as by displaying false warnings of virus infection.

Noun

scareware (uncountable)

  1. (informal) Software that attempts to scare the user into compliance, as by displaying false warnings of virus infection.

Origin of scareware

From scare + -ware.

Questions about scareware

What does scareware mean?
Scareware means software that attempts to scare the user into compliance, as by displaying false warnings of virus infection.
What part of speech is scareware?
Scareware is a noun.

Words near scareware in the dictionary

  1. scares up
  2. scaresome
  3. scaresomely
  4. scarest
  5. scareth
  6. scareware
  7. scarey
  8. scarf
  9. scarf and barf
  10. scarf down
  11. SCARF syndrome

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: scareware (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-scareware.wav.

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