The Collaborative International Dictionary
Scare \Scare\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Scared; p. pr. & vb. n. Scaring.] [OE. skerren, skeren, Icel. skirra to bar, prevent, skirrask to shun, shrink from; or fr. OE. skerre, adj., scared, Icel. skjarr; both perhaps akin to E. sheer to turn.] To frighten; to strike with sudden fear; to alarm.
The noise of thy crossbow
Will scare the herd, and so my shoot is lost.
--Shak.
To scare away, to drive away by frightening.
To scare up, to find by search, as if by beating for game.
Syn: To alarm; frighten; startle; affright; terrify.
Usage examples of "to scare away".
And his father's scare gun firing at intervals throughout the lightning-ribbed night to scare away all predators .
The ground was freshly turned, and there were stick people to scare away the birds when the seed was planted.
Surely they were anything but `ordinary people' - but perhaps they didn't want to scare away potential members.
Then they kept guard over the real El Dorado to scare away anybody who stumbled on it by mistake.