scarecrow

From scare +‎ crow from 1530s. Replaced original shewel from Middle English sheweles, from an unattested Old English form composed of scȳn +‎ -els (scīewels). Compare Middle Low German schūwelse and Middle High German schiusel. More at shy.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈskɛə.kɹəʊ/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈskɛəɹ.kɹoʊ/

scarecrows in a rice paddy in Japan

scarecrow (plural scarecrows)

1. An effigy, typically made of straw and dressed in old clothes, fixed to a pole in a field to deter birds from eating seeds or crops planted there.
2. (figuratively, derogatory) A tall, thin, awkward person.
   • 1749, Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling:

     A consultation was now entered into how to proceed in order to discover the mother. A scrutiny was first made into the characters of the female servants of the house, who were all acquitted by Mrs Wilkins, and with apparent merit; for she had collected them herself, and perhaps it would be difficult to find such another set of scarecrows.

3. (figuratively) Anything that appears terrifying but offers no danger.
   • John Dryden

     a scarecrow set to frighten fools away

4. A person clad in rags and tatters.
   • William Shakespeare

     No eye hath seen such scarecrows. I'll not march with them through Coventry, that's flat.

5. (Britain, dialectal) A bird, the black tern.

• (effigy made of straw): frayboggard (obsolete), scare-the-birds; See also Thesaurus:scarecrow

• straw man

• scarecrowish
• scarecrowlike

• crow scarer
• scarer

scarecrow (third-person singular simple present scarecrows, present participle scarecrowing, simple past and past participle scarecrowed)

1. (transitive) To splay rigidly outward, like the arms of a scarecrow.
   • 2006, Ron S. King, Nowhere Street, page 109:

     […] his small frame seeming scarecrowed in the over-large black coat.

   • 2010, Robert N. Chan, The Bad Samaritan:

     An arctic wind whooshes down Columbus Avenue like the IRT express, catching her bags, scarecrowing her arms, and threatening to take her broad-brimmed hat downtown.