scare out Idiom
scare out of one
frighten very much Her little girl was scared out of her wits after she saw the horror movie.
scare out of one's wits|daylights|out of one's wit
v. phr.,
informal To frighten very much.
The owl's hooting scared him out of his wits. The child was scared stiff in the dentist's chair. Pete's ghost story scared the daylights out of the smaller boys.
scare out of one's wits
scare out of one's wits Also,
frighten out of one's wits;
scare stiff or
silly or
to death or
the living daylights out of or
the pants off. Terrify, make one panic, as in
When the lights went out, she was scared out of her wits, or
I was scared stiff that I would fail the driver's test. The first of these hyperbolic terms,
scare out of one's wits, is the oldest and, like
silly, suggests one is frightened enough to lose one's mind. The verb
scare dates from about 1200, and
out of one's wits was first recorded in William Tyndale's translation of the Bible in 1526 (I Corinthians 14:23): “Will they not say that ye are out of your wits?” They were first put together in 1697, the same period from which came
scare out of one's seven senses, a usage now obsolete. The variant using
daylights, which sometimes occurs without
living, dates from the 1950s.
Daylights at one time referred to the eyes but here means “vital organs.”
Frighten to death was first recorded in Charles Dickens's
Barnaby Rudge (1840) and
scare to death probably appeared about the same time. However,
to death used as an intensifier dates from the 1500s. These terms allude to the fact that a sudden fright can precipitate cardiac arrest.
Scare stiff, first recorded in 1905, alludes to the temporary paralysis that can accompany intense fear. For the last variant, see also under
pants off, the.
scare out
To account addition or some beastly to leave or abscond some abode or affair by alarming them or it. A noun or pronoun can be acclimated amid "scare" and "out." I awash a continued stick into the air aqueduct to try to alarm out the raccoon. They began sending aggressive bearding belletrist in an accomplishment to alarm the man out of town.Learn more: out, scare
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