scarecrow

Etymology

The noun is derived from scare (“to frighten, startle, terrify”) + crow (“bird of the genus Corvus”). The word displaced other terms such as bogle (now dialectal, dated), sewel or shewel, and shoy-hoy (perhaps imitative of the cry of crows). The verb is derived from the noun.

noun

1. An effigy, typically made of straw and dressed in old clothes, fixed to a pole in a field to deter birds from eating crops or seeds planted there.
2. (by extension, derogatory) A person regarded as resembling a scarecrow (sense 1) in some way; especially, a tall, thin, awkward person; or a person wearing ragged and tattered clothes.
   (tall, thin person):
3. (dated) Synonym of crow scarer (“a farmhand employed to scare birds from the fields”)
4. (figurative)
   1. Anything that appears terrifying but presents no danger; a paper tiger.
      The Canada West Foundation dismisses these concerns as "political scarecrows"; fearsome at first glance but irrelevant on closer examination. Unfortunately the problems of an elected Senate cannot be dismissed so easily. 1983, Saskatchewan Law Review, volume 48, Saskatoon, Sask.: College of Law, University of Saskatchewan, →OCLC, page 114
   2. (military, World War II, historical) Military equipment or tactics used to scare and deter rather than cause actual damage.
5. (Britain, dialectal, obsolete)
   1. The black tern (Chlidonias niger).
   2. The hooded crow (Corvus cornix).

verb

1. To cause (a person, their body, etc.) to look awkward and stiff, like a scarecrow (noun sense 1).
   It felt as though the house could keep disgorging debris forever, a tidal wave of unmatched slippers and dresses scarecrowed on hangers, and after sifting through it all we would still know nothing. 1993, Jeffrey Eugenides, chapter 5, in The Virgin Suicides, New York, N.Y.: Picador, page 224
   [H]is small frame seeming scarecrowed in the over-large black coat. 2006, Ron S. King, Nowhere Street, page 109
   Because it was the end of the dry season, the trees were Seussian, their branches scarecrowing over lawns of brown grass. 2007, Dave Bidini, “Freetown”, in Around the World in 57½ Gigs, Toronto, Ont.: McClelland & Stewart, page 266
   In the mirror on the opposite wall he can see gray half-moons hanging under his eyes, his hair scarecrowing in tufts and waves. 2013, Patrick Flanery, “Part I: Shelter”, in Fallen Land, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Riverhead Books, pages 244–245
   1. To splay (one's arms) away from the body, like the arms of a scarecrow.
      With his stiff, awkward body, his knees bent, his arms scarecrowed far to either side, he had acted it all out, had been Adam trembling in the garden of his lost innocence, Moses on Sinai, Jahweh creating the heavens and the earth; […] 17 February 1958, Frederick Buechner, chapter I, in The Return of Ansel Gibbs, New York, N.Y.: Alfred A[braham] Knopf, published April 1958, →OCLC, page 14
      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. 3 May 2010, Robert N. Chan, “If Pigs Flu”, in The Bad Samaritan, Bloomington, Ind.: iUniverse
      He scarecrowed his arms. 'Disya belong to mi. Lang time mi wait fa dis. City nuh change.' 2013, Tom Benn, “Best Served Cold”, in Chamber Music, London: Jonathan Cape, page 231
2. To frighten or terrify (someone or something), as if using a scarecrow.
   It has been said of Mr. [Welby] Pugin that he patronises bad drawing, and now we perceive that he patronises very queer perspective, and very bad colouring also; […] Could we fancy that the mode of representation adopted by the latter [Pugin] were so with the intention of scarecrowing people away from those drawings, there might be some policy in it; […] 1849 June, “Architecture,—Royal Academy”, in The Civil Engineer and Architect’s Journal, Scientific and Railway Gazette, volume XII, number 141, London: R. Groombridge and Sons,[…], →OCLC, page 164, column 1
   Who is this ugly young man with large feet, scarecrowing the pretty birds from my crops? 1858, Varium, London: L. Booth,[…], →OCLC, page 99
   [W]e weren't doing any harm, only going into the fields, and making ourselves scarecrows to the birds. […] Then when I went scarecrowing with the big ones, she'd [his mother would] lead me a terrible life when I got back, threatening to turn me out. [1884], “Fiction and Fact”, in The Picture Reversed, London: The Religious Tract Society; […], →OCLC, page 42
   she leapt at their battering wings and i swung the broom. around and around i whirled, scarecrowing the demon birds, scrubbing my grandmother's words off the walls. The text of the work is not capitalized. 2016, Glenda Millard, “forgotten thing”, in The Stars at Oktober Bend, 1st UK edition, [Fittleworth, West Sussex]: Old Barn Books, pages 157–158
   The herder, a seventeen-year-old boy named Hassan, the youngest son of a friend, scarecrowed madly in his blue robes to force the animals off the asphalt just in time for a silver SUV to whiz by toward Bamako. 2022, Anna Badkhen, “Once I Took a Weeklong Walk in the Sahara”, in Bright Unbearable Reality: Essays, New York, N.Y.: The New York Review of Books, pages 32–33
3. (archaic) To spoil the appearance of (something, such as the landscape or a view), as scarecrows may be regarded as doing.
   Fatigued and hungry as our party were after a long drive through the desolate region of malaria, wild buffaloes, wild birds, and yet wilder specimens of the human race, which here and there scare-crow the broad, sadly picturesque expanse between the last cork-trees near Salerno, and the treeless vicinage of the temple of Neptune, we dared not venture upon fish with green bones,—the only dish served up for our repast; […] we all preferred bearing our hunger, and traversing a second time the fiery plain unrefreshed, to breaking our fast upon such suspicious diet; […] 1853 October, “Pike, Salmon, Silurus, Herring, and Company. Esox or Pike.”, in Fraser’s Magazine for Town and Country, volume XLVIII, number CCLXXXVI, London: John W[illiam] Parker and Son,[…], →OCLC, footnote *, page 471