- scare
- {{Roman}}I.{{/Roman}} nounADJECTIVE▪ major, nasty, terrible▪
a major health scare
▪ food, health▪ AIDS, cancer, etc.▪ pregnancy▪ bomb▪ terror, terrorism, terroristVERB + SCARE▪ cause▪ give sb▪It wasn't a serious heart attack, but it gave him a terrible scare.
▪ get, haveSCARE + NOUN▪ campaign, story, tactics▪The ad uses scare tactics to get people to stop smoking.
PREPOSITION▪ scare about, scare over▪the scare over bird flu
PHRASES▪ a bit of a scare, quite a scare▪{{Roman}}II.{{/Roman}}I got quite a scare when the police called me.
verbADVERB▪ really▪ easily▪He doesn't scare easily.
▪ away, off▪His name scares off a lot of people.
VERB + SCARE▪ try to, want to▪ start toPREPOSITION▪ into▪They're just trying to scare us into letting out the secret.
▪ with▪You don't scare me with your threats!
PHRASES▪ scare sb silly, scare sb stiff, scare sb to death (all informal)▪The very thought of flying scares me stiff.
▪ scare the life out of sb, scare the living daylights out of sb (both informal)▪You scared the life out of me, hiding like that!
▪ scare the pants off sb (informal, esp. AmE)Scare is used with these nouns as the object: ↑investor
Collocations dictionary. 2013.