Collins COBUILD Advanced Learner's English Dictionary - scare off

1. If you scare off or scare away a person or animal, you frighten them so that they go away. ...an alarm to scare off an attacker. ...the problem of scaring birds away from airport runways. PHRASAL VERB: V P n (not pron), V n P 2. If you scare someone off, you accidentally make them unwilling to become involved with you. I don’t think that revealing your past to your boyfriend scared him off... The new Democratic Party is not likely to scare off voters. = put off PHRASAL VERB: V n P, V P n (not pron)