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Frightful vs Scary - What's the difference?

frightful | scary |

As adjectives the difference between frightful and scary

is that frightful is (obsolete): full of fright; affrighted; frightened while scary is causing or able to cause fright.

As a noun scary is

barren land having only a thin coat of grass.

frightful

English

(Webster 1913)

Alternative forms

* frightfull (archaic)

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • (obsolete): Full of fright; affrighted; frightened.
  • *
  • Full of that which causes fright; exciting alarm; impressing terror; shocking; as, a frightful chasm, or tempest; a frightful appearance.
  • (Used as an intensifier)
    • We wasted a frightful amount of money on renovations.

    Synonyms

    * terrible * dreadful * alarming * fearful * terrific * awful * horrid * horrible * shocking

    scary

    English

    Etymology 1

    Adjective

    (er)
  • Causing or able to cause fright
    • The tiger's jaws were scary.
    She was hiding behind her pillow during the scary parts of the film.
  • (US, colloquial, dated) Subject to sudden alarm; nervous, jumpy.
    • (Whittier)
  • * 1916 , Texas Department of Agriculture, Bulletin (issues 47-57), page 150:
    • And let us say to these interests that, until the Buy-It-Made-In-Texas movement co-operates with the farmers, we are going to be a little scary of the snare.
    Synonyms
    * (causing fright) frightening

    Etymology 2

    From dialectal English .

    Noun

  • Barren land having only a thin coat of grass.

    • Anagrams

    * *