Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. to scare, to unnerve.

1928		Zora & Cooper Sawdust and Solitude 166: My screaming and sudden appearance on foot ‘spooked’ him, and with the rest of his herd, he went crashing into the buck brush.
1939		L. Short Raiders of the Rimrock 66: Something’s spookin’ him down here.
1944		Sat. Eve. Post 16 Apr. 152/3: We would have to descend the hillside and work in among the moose, running the risk of spooking them and causing a panicky exodus from the basin [DA].
1950		E. Hemingway letter 2 June in Baker Sel. Letters (1981) 698: I did not want them to fire the fifty’s and maybe spook others that would be comeing.
1963		H.S. Thompson letter 18 Nov. in Proud Highway (1997) 413: I didn’t want to spook the elk.
1963		G. Lambert Inside Daisy Clover (1966) 64: The atmosphere spooked me.
1974		G.F. Newman You Flash Bastard 169: The DI looked askance at his friend, wondering what was causing him to respond in that way [...] maybe the face who tried following him had really spooked Paul.
1981		S. Berkoff Decadence in Decadence and Other Plays (1985) 28: I read it in a book how you can work the spell or spook some geezer into living hell.
1993		T. Jones Pugilist at Rest 14: In three days he had said nothing to me, I suppose because I was F.N.G., and had spooked him.
2000		P. Beatty Tuff 143: The ghosts of Demetrius, Chilly Most, and Zoltan circled overhead, spooking him into dropping his bottle of malt liquor.
2005		P. Temple Broken Shore (2007) [ebook] Find out about this ute without spooking anybody.
2006		C. Hiaasen Nature Girl 85: I spooked them off with the gunfire.
2010		J. Ellroy Hilliker Curse 7: The movie spooked me. My wig was loose.
2015		N. Cummins Tales of the Honey Badger [ebook] One day when he was on the chew something spooked him.
2019		D. Winslow Border [ebook] ‘They didn’t want to get too close and spook them’.
2023		(con. 1962) J. Ellroy Enchanters 43: The tacked-up wall photos spooked me.

2. to take fright, to become scared.

1951		R. Starnes Grant’s Tomb 176: I do not spook readily. The are some things that frighten me [but] unknown bogeymen are not among them.
1953		T. Runyon In For Life 31: Why small-town bankers didn’t all learn to spook [...] when more than one stranger appeared in the lobby at once will forever puzzle me.
1961		(con. 1945) G. Forbes Goodbye to Some (1963) 194: If Ainsworth hadn’t spooked, everything would have been all right.
1970		G.V. Higgins ‘Dillon Explained That He Was Frightened’ in N. Amer. Rev. Fall 44/1: He was scared and he didn’t spook.
1988		T. Harris Silence of the Lambs (1991) 4: Do you spook easily, Starling?
1990		S. Morgan Homeboy 168: When he sees one of these lids he spooks, like he’s smelling the flowers on his own grave.
1997		C. Hiaasen Lucky You 192: He didn’t spook easily, and he’d do just about anything you told him.

3. to steal.

1959

W. Brown Teen-Age Mafia 28: The Jaguar was a snazzy job [...] Whitey and Pico had spooked it.