Scarecrow

Quick meaning: Scarecrow is a noun meaning Anything that appears terrifying but presents no danger; a paper tiger.

Meaning

Anything that appears terrifying but presents no danger; a paper tiger.

More Meanings

1. Military equipment or tactics used to scare and deter rather than cause actual damage.
2. The black tern (Chlidonias niger).
3. The hooded crow (Corvus cornix).
4. To cause (a person, their body, etc.) to look awkward and stiff, like a scarecrow (noun sense 1).
5. An effigy, typically made of straw and dressed in old clothes, fixed to a pole in a field to deter birds from eating crops or seeds planted there.
6. (by extension, derogatory) A person or animal regarded as resembling a scarecrow (sense 1) in some way; especially, a tall, thin, awkward person; or a person wearing ragged and tattered clothes.
7. (dated) Synonym of crow scarer (“a farmhand employed to scare birds from the fields”).

Example Sentences

No eye hath ſeene ſuch skarcrovves. Ile not march vvith them through Couentry vvith them, thats flat: […]

Priapus was frequently represented sculpturally, as a kind of scarecrow among the fields and even as a protection over graveyards.

VVots thou vvho's returnd, / The unthrift Bonvile, ragged as a ſcarre-crovv, / The VVarres have gnavv'd his garments to the skinne: […]

[W]e ſet him [the Devil] up like a Scare-Crovv to fright Children and old VVomen, to fill up old Stories, make Songs and Ballads, and in a VVord, carry on the lovv priz'd Buffoonry of the common People; […]

Word Forms

• scarecrows
• scare-crow
• scarecrowing
• scarecrowed

Synonyms for scarecrow

Depending on context, synonyms include crowkeeper, frayboggard, gallicrow, gallybagger, malkin, mammet.

Related Words

Related dictionary entries include strawman, spectre, sewel, shewel, potato-bogle, stool.

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