Scar or scare?
scar is a noun meaning “A permanent mark on the skin, sometimes caused by the healing of a wound”; scare is a noun meaning “A minor fright”. In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) scare is about 2.0 times as common as scar.
What is the difference between scar and scare?
| scar | scare | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | noun, verb | noun, verb, adjective |
| Meaning | A permanent mark on the skin, sometimes caused by the healing of a wound A permanent negative effect on someone's mind, caused by a traumatic experience To mark the skin permanently | A minor fright A cause of terror or alarm; a panic; something that inspires fear or dread To frighten, terrify, startle, especially in a minor way |
| Example | Seeing his parents die in a car crash scarred him for life | Johnny had a bad scare last night |
| Forms | scars | scares |
| Pronunciation | /skɑɹ/ /skɑː(ɹ)/ | /skɛə/ /skɛɚ/ /skɪə(ɹ)/ |
| In writing | 5.9 times per million words | 12 times per million words |
Sources: scar and scare in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of scar and scare
scar
- 1
A permanent mark on the skin, sometimes caused by the healing of a wound
- 2
To mark the skin permanently
- 3
A cliff or rock outcrop
- 4
A marine food fish, the scarus or parrotfish (family Scaridae)
- 5
A permanent negative effect on someone's mind, caused by a traumatic experience
- 6
To form a scar
- 7
A rock in the sea breaking out from the surface of the water
- 8
Any permanent mark resulting from damage
scare
- 1
A minor fright
Johnny had a bad scare last night
- 2
To frighten, terrify, startle, especially in a minor way
Did it scare you when I said "Boo!"?
- 3
lean; scanty
- 4
A cause of terror or alarm; a panic; something that inspires fear or dread
a food-poisoning scare
- 5
(To be able) to be scared
I don't scare easily
- 6
A device or object used to frighten
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, scar or scare?
scar appears 5.9 times per million words; scare 12 times per million words.
scar 5.9 times per million wordsscare 12 times per million words
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How many people search scar vs scare?
“scar vs scare” is searched about 10 times a month on Bing (Google reports it together with close variants, so it has no figure of its own) in the United States.
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.