Word.ws English Dictionary

scaring up

scaring up is the present participle and gerund of scare up.

Meaning of scare up

Verb

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

  1. To frighten (an animal, especially a game animal) into appearing from cover.
    • Soon after, we scare up a flock of black ducks.1881, Henry David Thoreau, Early Spring in Massachusetts
    Synonyms:
    drive, flush, flush out
  2. (figuratively) To find or procure (something), especially something not easily found or procured, and especially while relying on chance to provide the means.
    • “By the way,” said his friend, “let’s go over into Leopoldstadt, and see if we can’t scare up a sleigh for a little turn in the suburbs.”1881, William Dean Howells, A Modern Instance, page 185

Questions about scaring up

What is scaring up the present participle and gerund of?
Scaring up is the present participle and gerund of scare up.

Words near scaring up in the dictionary

  1. scaring the hoes
  2. scaring the life out of
  3. scaring the living daylights out of
  4. scaring the pants off
  5. scaring the shit out of
  6. scaring up
  7. scaringly
  8. scariole
  9. scarioles
  10. scariose
  11. scarious

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: scaring up (page history and authors); scare up (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: “scaring up.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/scaring_up. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.