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Gruesome vs Scary - What's the difference?

gruesome | scary |

As adjectives the difference between gruesome and scary

is that gruesome is repellently frightful and shocking; horrific or ghastly while scary is causing or able to cause fright.

As a noun scary is

barren land having only a thin coat of grass.

gruesome

English

Adjective

(en-adj)
  • repellently frightful and shocking; horrific or ghastly
  • * 1912 : (Edgar Rice Burroughs), (Tarzan of the Apes), Chapter 6
  • In the middle of the floor lay a skeleton, every vestige of flesh gone from the bones to which still clung the mildewed and moldered remnants of what had once been clothing. Upon the bed lay a similar gruesome thing, but smaller, while in a tiny cradle near-by was a third, a wee mite of a skeleton.
  • * {{quote-news
  • , year=2011 , date=May 04 , title=Bin Laden was unarmed when shot dead citation , passage=Jay Carney said that the US was considering whether to release photos of bin Laden after he was killed on Sunday but that the photos were gruesome and could be inflammatory.}}

    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

    * *