"jump scare" meaning in English

See jump scare in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Forms: jump scares [plural]
Head templates: {{en-noun}} jump scare (plural jump scares)
  1. (narratology) The technique, typically used in horror films and video games, of having something occur suddenly and without warning to frighten the audience. Categories (topical): Narratology Translations (a technique to suddenly scare the audience): säikäytys (Finnish), jump scare (French), скример (skrimer) [masculine] (Russian), susto repentino [masculine] (Spanish)
    Sense id: en-jump_scare-en-noun-Yo8uYTGb Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 62 38 Topics: human-sciences, linguistics, narratology, sciences

Verb

Forms: jump scares [present, singular, third-person], jump scaring [participle, present], jump scared [participle, past], jump scared [past]
Head templates: {{en-verb}} jump scare (third-person singular simple present jump scares, present participle jump scaring, simple past and past participle jump scared)
  1. (transitive) To frighten (a film audience or video game player, etc.) by means of something that happens suddenly without warning. Tags: transitive Categories (topical): Film, Horror, Video games Synonyms: jump-scare, jumpscare
    Sense id: en-jump_scare-en-verb-LnZaJxui Disambiguation of Film: 37 63 Disambiguation of Horror: 44 56 Disambiguation of Video games: 44 56

Inflected forms

Alternative forms

Download JSON data for jump scare meaning in English (4.6kB)

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  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Narratology",
          "orig": "en:Narratology",
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      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2011, Mira Grant, Deadline, Orbit, published 2011",
          "text": "They'd do something horrible, maybe kill off a few protagonists, and then make people sit around waiting for the next terrible thing to come along. They called it “setting up a jump scare.”",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2011, John Rosenberg, The Healthy Edit: Creative Techniques for Perfecting Your Movie, Focal Press, pages 80–81",
          "text": "Drag Me to Hell capitalizes on the jump scare, scattering it liberally throughout the film to the point where it becomes almost numbing.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2013, Jeffrey Bullins, “Hearing the Game: Sound Design”, in James Aston, editor, To See the Saw Movies: Essays on Torture Porn and Post-9/11 Horror, McFarland & Company, page 188",
          "text": "This quiet is broken suddenly with an initial jump scare of the puppet's iconic laughter.",
          "type": "quotation"
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        "The technique, typically used in horror films and video games, of having something occur suddenly and without warning to frighten the audience."
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        [
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          "frighten"
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      "raw_glosses": [
        "(narratology) The technique, typically used in horror films and video games, of having something occur suddenly and without warning to frighten the audience."
      ],
      "topics": [
        "human-sciences",
        "linguistics",
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      "translations": [
        {
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "sense": "a technique to suddenly scare the audience",
          "word": "säikäytys"
        },
        {
          "code": "fr",
          "lang": "French",
          "sense": "a technique to suddenly scare the audience",
          "word": "jump scare"
        },
        {
          "code": "ru",
          "lang": "Russian",
          "roman": "skrimer",
          "sense": "a technique to suddenly scare the audience",
          "tags": [
            "masculine"
          ],
          "word": "скример"
        },
        {
          "code": "es",
          "lang": "Spanish",
          "sense": "a technique to suddenly scare the audience",
          "tags": [
            "masculine"
          ],
          "word": "susto repentino"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "jump scare"
}

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  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
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          "_dis": "37 63",
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      "glosses": [
        "To frighten (a film audience or video game player, etc.) by means of something that happens suddenly without warning."
      ],
      "id": "en-jump_scare-en-verb-LnZaJxui",
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      "raw_glosses": [
        "(transitive) To frighten (a film audience or video game player, etc.) by means of something that happens suddenly without warning."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "_dis1": "31 69",
          "word": "jump-scare"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "31 69",
          "word": "jumpscare"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
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  "word": "jump scare"
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{
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    "en:Horror",
    "en:Video games"
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  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
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      "categories": [
        "English terms with quotations",
        "en:Narratology"
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      "examples": [
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          "ref": "2011, Mira Grant, Deadline, Orbit, published 2011",
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          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2011, John Rosenberg, The Healthy Edit: Creative Techniques for Perfecting Your Movie, Focal Press, pages 80–81",
          "text": "Drag Me to Hell capitalizes on the jump scare, scattering it liberally throughout the film to the point where it becomes almost numbing.",
          "type": "quotation"
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        {
          "ref": "2013, Jeffrey Bullins, “Hearing the Game: Sound Design”, in James Aston, editor, To See the Saw Movies: Essays on Torture Porn and Post-9/11 Horror, McFarland & Company, page 188",
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        "(narratology) The technique, typically used in horror films and video games, of having something occur suddenly and without warning to frighten the audience."
      ],
      "topics": [
        "human-sciences",
        "linguistics",
        "narratology",
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    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "jump-scare"
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    {
      "word": "jumpscare"
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  ],
  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "a technique to suddenly scare the audience",
      "word": "säikäytys"
    },
    {
      "code": "fr",
      "lang": "French",
      "sense": "a technique to suddenly scare the audience",
      "word": "jump scare"
    },
    {
      "code": "ru",
      "lang": "Russian",
      "roman": "skrimer",
      "sense": "a technique to suddenly scare the audience",
      "tags": [
        "masculine"
      ],
      "word": "скример"
    },
    {
      "code": "es",
      "lang": "Spanish",
      "sense": "a technique to suddenly scare the audience",
      "tags": [
        "masculine"
      ],
      "word": "susto repentino"
    }
  ],
  "word": "jump scare"
}

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    "en:Film",
    "en:Horror",
    "en:Video games"
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  "forms": [
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      "form": "jump scares",
      "tags": [
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    {
      "form": "jump scaring",
      "tags": [
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    },
    {
      "form": "jump scared",
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    },
    {
      "form": "jump scared",
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  "head_templates": [
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  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English transitive verbs"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To frighten (a film audience or video game player, etc.) by means of something that happens suddenly without warning."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "frighten",
          "frighten"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(transitive) To frighten (a film audience or video game player, etc.) by means of something that happens suddenly without warning."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "transitive"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "jump-scare"
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    {
      "word": "jumpscare"
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This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-12 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (ae36afe and 304864d). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.