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Horrid vs Scary - What's the difference?

horrid | scary |

As adjectives the difference between horrid and scary

is that horrid is (archaic) bristling, rough, rugged while scary is causing or able to cause fright.

As a noun scary is

barren land having only a thin coat of grass.

horrid

English

Adjective

(en-adj)
  • (archaic) bristling, rough, rugged
    • His haughtie Helmet. horrid all with gold,//Both glorious brightnesse and great terror bredd. - , The Faerie Queen , I-vii-31
    Horrid with fern, and intricate with thorn. -
    Ye grots and caverns shagg's with horrid thorn! - , Eloisa to Abelard , I-20
  • causing horror or dread
    • Give colour to my pale cheek with thy blood,//that we the horrider may seem to those//Which chance to find us. - Shakespeare, Cymbeline , IV-ii
    I myself will be//The priest, and boldly do those horrid rites//You shake to think on. - , Sea Voyage , V-iv
    Not in the legions Of horrid hell. - Shakespeare, Macbeth , IV-iii
    What say you then to fair Sir Percivale,//And of the horrid foulness that he wrought? - , Merlin and Vivien
  • offensive, disagreeable, abominable, execrable
    • 1668' My Lord Chief Justice Keeling hath laid the constable by the heels to answer it next Sessions: which is a '''horrid shame. - , ''Diary , October 23
    About the middle of November we began to work on our Ship's bottom, which we found very much eaten with the Worm: For this is a horrid place for Worms. - , Voyages , I-362
    Already I your tears survey,//Already hear the horrid things they say. - , The Rape of the Lock , IV-108

    Usage notes

    * "Horrid" and "horrible" originally had different meanings, but have become almost synonymous over the years.

    Synonyms

    * abominable * alarming * appalling * awful * dire * dreadful * frightful * harrowing * hideous * horrible * revolting * shocking * terrific

    References

    * *

    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

    * *