scare-babe

English

Alternative forms

• scarbabe, scarebabe

Noun

scare-babe (plural scare-babes)

1. (archaic) Something that inspires fear but presents no real danger.
   • 1862, Thomas Adams, The works: Being the sum of his sermons, meditations, and other divine and moral discourses, page 7:

     Let the wicked flatter themselves that all is but talk of any coming to judgment ; non aliud videre patres, aliudve nepotes aspicient; all is but terriculamenta nutricum, mere scare-babes.

   • 1867 June 8, “Gog and Magog”, in Every Saturday, volume 3, number 75, page 732:

     In the hope that this is so in the present case, we omit to discuss at length the later applications of the name Gogmagog to the hills of Cambridgeshire, or the sworn society of festive citizens of the eighteenth century, and spare allusion even to the canine hero of one of Hood's ballads, “A snappish mongrel, christened Gog,” believing that those who give an idle glance towards the scare-babe figures of our renovated Guildhall will not feel less interest in them from the remembrance that they were once so nearly allied in popular belief with the mighty destoyer of Persian and Indian thrones, the conqueror, Secunder, whose very coins were eagerly sought after, to be worn as amulets by the credulous multitude of the ages of reviving civilization.

   • 1882, John Gibson Lockhart, Memoirs of Sir Walter Scott: 1818-1821, page 412:

     He hath a burlie frame, and scare-babe visage; he shall do wel enoughe in such charge, though lackyng the use of four fingers.

   • 1894, William Roscoe Thayer, The Dawn of Italian Independence:

     Thus did the Chancellor, now crying, like Cassandra, with a "scare-babe voice," now stating his views with the sententiousness of Nestor, now arguing calmly in a tone of specious frankness, — artfully appealing to reason or prejudice or fear, touching every string, political, dynastic, and religious, — thus did he endeavor, throughout the year 1847, to resist the torrent which he saw was rising, rising, and which, he knew, threatened to sweep away the dam.

   • 1970, Leicestershire Archaeological and Historical Society, Transactions - Volumes 44-45, page 43:

     He utters “A Caueat to the Inferior ministers of the Law, especially to Lawyers”, enlarging upon three particular scandals: first, bad causes maintained against the innocent; secondly, honest suits drawn out to great length and costliness; and thirdly, lawyers who become “Scare-babes and Bug-beares to their Innocent neighbours, vsing the Lawes for traps & snares to catch and entangle the vnwary”.

   • 1982, Eric Herbert Warmington, Livius Andronicus, Naevius, Pacuvius and Accius, page 435:

     Achilles: And now where are your scare-babes ?