to scare up
7
6.1
- phrasal verb
- /skɛr ʌp/
- Informal
:
reunir
- Sure would like to help you out, Ranger, but there's just no way we can scare up enough men around here for a proper search.
- scare up some cash
- scare up a buyer
- scare up an extra ticket
I will try and scare up some pictures of it because it's spectacularly packed for what size it was.
- I will try and scare up some pictures of it because it's spectacularly packed for what size it was.
Examples
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The lawyers are gonna try to scare up more clients.
-
Oh, Mr. Senior's down at the docks trying to scare up some catfish.
-
Let me look around and see who I can scare up.
-
If we could scare up some men to play.
-
Well, perhaps I can scare up a whiskey?
-
Alright then, we'll scare up a list of villages.
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I think I'll try and scare up a taxi.
-
Now I just need to scare up some distracting dogs.
Blog text (28) -
I think I'm going to have to step up the game a bit to see if I can scare up some spooky activities in the building.
Blog text (23) -
If we could scare up some volunteers, we could finish the project on time.
Synonyms
12
6.1
Gather small amounts of money or supplies with difficulty
11
5.1
To quickly make or find something, often food, using what you have
5
4.8
Get a small amount of money or help with difficulty
Find something after searching carefully
How Difficult
- Informal
7
6.1
- Informal
4
7.0
169
3.2
∞
1.0
∞
1.0
Surface Forms
Morphology
scare + up
The sense 'to find/obtain' is not a straightforward compositional reading of 'scare' (to frighten) + 'up' but can be linked via a plausible extension: 'scare up' originally means to frighten something up (make it come up/appear) and is metaphorically extended to produce or procure. Recognizing this particle-driven, causative/metaphorical shift requires more than literal knowledge of the constituents, so a B1 learner would only partially infer the meaning without prior exposure.
Etymology
The phrasal verb scare up comes from hunting: when you scare birds up from cover they fly into view so you can catch them. So when you 'scare up' volunteers, money, or chairs, you 'find' or 'gather' them often by making extra effort.