Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913
Scarecrow
Scare′crow′, n. 1. Anything set up to frighten crows or other birds from cornfields; hence, anything terifying without danger.
A scarecrow set to frighten fools away. Dryden.
2. A person clad in rags and tatters.
No eye hath seen such scarecrows. I'll not march with them through Coventry, that's flat. Shak.
3. (Zoöl.) The black tern. [Prov. Eng.]