Tragic vs Scary - What's the difference?
tragic | scary |
Causing great sadness or suffering.
* {{quote-magazine, year=2012, month=March-April
, author=(Jan Sapp)
, title=Race Finished
, volume=100, issue=2, page=164
, magazine=(American Scientist)
Relating to tragedy in a literary work.
(in tabloid newspapers) Involved in a tragedy.
* 2008', ''Search for '''tragic Madeleine McCann over'' (in ''The Daily Telegraph of Australia, 14 February 2008) [http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/search-for-maddie-over/story-e6freuy9-1111115550129]
* 2012', Gary Meneely, ''Keano’s tribute to '''tragic James'' (in ''The Irish Sun , 25 June 2012) [http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/irishsun/irishsunnews/4392499/Keanos-tribute-to-tragic-James.html]
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 adjectives the difference between tragic and scary
is that tragic is causing great sadness or suffering while scary is causing or able to cause fright.As nouns the difference between tragic and scary
is that tragic is (obsolete) a writer of tragedy while scary is barren land having only a thin coat of grass.tragic
English
Alternative forms
* tragick (obsolete)Adjective
(en adjective)citation, passage=Few concepts are as emotionally charged as that of race. The word conjures up a mixture of associations—culture, ethnicity, genetics, subjugation, exclusion and persecution. But is the tragic history of efforts to define groups of people by race really a matter of the misuse of science, the abuse of a valid biological concept?}}
Derived terms
* tragic flawscary
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.