Word.ws English Dictionary

scarey

scarey is the dated form of scary.

Meaning of scary

Adjective

scary (comparative scarier, superlative scariest)

  1. (informal) Causing fear or anxiety
    • The tiger's jaws were scary.
  2. (informal) Uncannily striking or surprising.
    • Linda changed her hair, and it’s scary how much she looks like her mother.
  3. (US, colloquial) Subject to sudden alarm; easily frightened.
    • “Whist! whist!” said Natty, in a low voice, on hearing a slight sound made by Elizabeth, in bending over the side of the canoe, in eager curiosity; “’tis a sceary animal, and it’s a far stroke for a spear. […]”1823, James Fenimore Cooper, chapter 5, in The Pioneers, volume 2, New York: Charles Wiley, the UK edition of the same year has scary (p. 262), page 77
    Synonyms:
    nervous, jumpy

See all 5 meanings of scary

Forms of scarey

comparativemore scarey
superlativemost scarey

Questions about scarey

What is scarey the dated form of?
Scarey is the dated form of scary.

Words near scarey in the dictionary

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: scarey (page history and authors); scary (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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Cite this entry: “scarey.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/scarey. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.