scared
/skɛ(ə)ɹd/adjective, verb
scared is spelled S-C-A-R-E-D. The wrong spelling people search most is scard: about 250 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 19 of all searches for the word. Scared is an adjective meaning “Feeling fear; afraid, frightened”.
How many letters and syllables are in scared?
| Letters | 6: S-C-A-R-E-D |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 1 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 40 times per million words; the 2,487th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 1; the most searched, scard, about 250 Bing searches a month (all of them) |
| Rhymes with | |
| Same letters |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.
How do you spell scared?
Scared is spelled S-C-A-R-E-D. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 19 of the searches for scared in either form.
Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026). Wrong spellings are taken from Wiktionary entries tagged "misspelling" and its obsolete or nonstandard forms, Wikipedia's Lists of common misspellings and the codespell dictionary, then measured. The proofreader's marks show the change that corrects each one.
How common is scared?
Scared appears 40 times per million words in written English, the 2,487th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce scared?
- UK /skɛəd/
- US /skɛ(ə)ɹd/
- US [skɛɚd]
Scared has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Back_ache-scared.wav, En-us-scared.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
What rhymes with scared?
9 words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as scared from its last stressed vowel (/ɛɹd/):
Spelled with the same letters in another order: sacred.
Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).
Forms of scared
- more scared comparative
- scareder comparative
- most scared superlative
- scaredest superlative
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does scared mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
adjective
- 1
Feeling fear; afraid, frightened.
I’m scared I’ll miss the train.
verb
- 1
simple past and past participle of scare
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Scared in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense afraid, frightened:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | effrayé, avoir peur |
| German | erschrocken, bange, ängstlich |
| Portuguese | assustado |
| Spanish | asustado |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does scared come from?
From scare + -ed.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).