Q: With Halloween just around the corner, I am interested in the history of the word “scary.” In standard American English, it typically means inspiring fear, but I have noticed that African-Americans and white Americans from the South sometimes use it to describe someone who is easily frightened.
A: Both meanings of the adjective “scary” (fearsome and fearful) have been in use for centuries. Both interpretations are widely accepted in current standard American dictionaries, as well as in at least one standard British dictionary.
Merriam-Webster, an online American dictionary, defines “scary” as (1) “causing fright,” (2) “easily scared,” and (3) “feeling alarm or fright.” It provides examples such as “a scary movie that gave the child nightmares for weeks afterwards,” and “a scary horse who spooked and kicked at its own shadow.”
Collins, an online British dictionary, includes both senses in British English, defining them as (1) “causing fear or alarm; frightening” and (2) “easily roused to fear; timid.” Most other standard British dictionaries we have consulted only list the first sense.
The Oxford English Dictionary, an etymological reference, defines “scary” as (1) “terrifying, frightful” and (2) “frightened, timorous.” It notes that the second meaning is “originally and chiefly North American.”
The first sense of “scary” dates back to the 16th century. The earliest OED citation (with the adjective spelled “skearye”) is from an English translation of the Aeneid by Virgil:
“But toe the, poore Dido, this sight so skearye beholding, What feeling creepeth?” (from Thee First Foure Bookes of Virgil His Æneis, 1582, translated by Richard Stanyhurst).
The second sense was first recorded in the 18th century. The earliest Oxford example is from correspondence by an American merchant in London to his partners in Maryland:
“If you are scary, we never shall cut any figure in the business” (from a letter dated Nov. 29, 1773, in Joshua Johnson’s Letterbook, published in 1979).
The most recent OED citation for the second sense is from a children’s book by an English writer: “He was as scary of being seen as a wild deer” (from Thursday’s Child, 1970, by Noel Streatfeild).
Regarding the etymology of “scary,” the Oxford English Dictionary states that it was “formed within English, by derivation” by adding the suffix “y” to the noun “scare.” In Middle English, the noun (spelled “skere”) had the now obsolete sense of fear or dread.
The noun was derived from the use of the verb “scare” (“skerre” in Middle English) to mean frighten or terrify. The OED’s earliest citation for the verb is from the Ormulum (circa 1175), a collection of early Middle English homilies:
“He wile himm færenn ȝiff he maȝȝ & skerrenn mare. & mare” (“He [the devil] will frighten him if he can and scare him more and more”).
Middle English borrowed the verb “scare” from early Scandinavian. In Old Norse, skirra meant to terrify, avoid strife, or shrink from, similar to the adjectival senses of “scary” in Modern English.
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