scarecrow

Meanings

Noun

• 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.
• A tall, thin, awkward person.
• Anything that appears terrifying but presents no danger.
• A person clad in rags and tatters.
• A bird, the black tern.

Verb

• To splay rigidly outward, like the arms of a scarecrow.

Origin

• From scare + crow. Replaced original shewel from Middle English sheweles, of unclear origin but probably from an unattested Old English form, composed of scȳn + -els (Old English scīewels). Compare Middle Low German schūwelse and Middle High German schiusel. See further at shy. Another replaced term for the thing was shoy-hoy, perhaps imitative of the cry of crows, in addition to bogle.