askeered

askeered pronunciation

/uh-SKEERD/

Meaning

Scared, said the Southern way. The a- on front is the same kind of add-on you hear in a-coming or a-going. Short form skeered drops that a- and still means the same thing. Good for dark barns, steep roads, and anything that makes your stomach jump.

How folks use it

• “I ain't askeered of that old dog.”
• “He got askeered when the lightning hit close.”

Origin and etymology

A spoken form of "scared," often written a-skeered in dialect stories. The leading a- fits an older English habit of prefixing participles and adjectives. Southern and Appalachian speech kept skeered and askeered in everyday talk. Exact first printing is fuzzy because spellings bounce around.

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