Spook vs Scary - What's the difference?
spook | scary |
A spirit returning to haunt a place.
A ghost or an apparition.
A hobgoblin.
(espionage) A spy.
* 2009 , "Spies like them", BBC News Magazine (online), 24 July 2009:
* 2012 , The Economist, Oct 13th 2012,
A scare or fright.
(dated, pejorative) A black person.
To scare or frighten.
To startle or frighten an animal
Causing or able to cause fright
(US, colloquial, dated) Subject to sudden alarm; nervous, jumpy.
* 1916 , Texas Department of Agriculture, Bulletin (issues 47-57), page 150:
Barren land having only a thin coat of grass.
As nouns the difference between spook and scary
is that spook is a spirit returning to haunt a place while scary is barren land having only a thin coat of grass.As a verb spook
is to scare or frighten.As an adjective scary is
causing or able to cause fright.spook
English
Noun
(en noun)- The visit to the old cemetery brought scary visions of spooks and ghosts.
- The building was haunted by a couple of spooks .
- From Ian Fleming to John Le Carre - authors have long been fascinated by the world of espionage. But, asks the BBC’s Gordon Corera, what do real life spooks make of fictional spies?
Huawei and ZTE: Put on hold
- The congressional study frets that Huawei’s and ZTE’s products could be used as Trojan horses by Chinese spooks .
- The big spider gave me a spook .
Synonyms
* See alsoVerb
(en verb)- The movement in the bushes spooked the deer and they ran.
Derived terms
* spookiness * spookish * spook out * spookySee also
*Anagrams
* ----scary
English
Etymology 1
Adjective
(er)- The tiger's jaws were scary.
- She was hiding behind her pillow during the scary parts of the film.
- (Whittier)
- 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.