scarehead

Clipping of scare +‎ headline

scarehead (plural scareheads)

1. An alarming or sensational headline.
   • 1952, The Beta Theta Pi - Volume 79, Issue 2, page 271:

     For sound reasons of literary structure, the Eta Bita Pies had their temporary setbacks, but over the closing scene there always rang out triumphantly that grand, old anthem: "Oh, you've got to be an Eta Bita Pie Or you won't get a scarehead when you die!"

   • 2014, Mary Roberts Rinehart, The Window at the White Cat, →ISBN, page 141:

     If then he makes a scarehead of it, and gets in three columns of space and as many photographs, it is his just reward.

   • 2017, Julian Murphet, Faulkner's Media Romance, →ISBN, page 219:

     News, here, is what does not stay news, but is reified into undeviating headlines: the stilldamp neat row of boxes which in the paper's natural order had no scarehead, containing, since there was nothing new in them since time began, likewise no alarm: —that corssection out of timespace as though of a lightray caught by a speed lens for a seconds fraction between infinity and furious and trivial dust:

scarehead (third-person singular simple present scareheads, present participle scareheading, simple past and past participle scareheaded)

1. To write a scarehead.
   • 1923, ???, “The Young Man Who Wanted to Die”, in Weird Tales‎, page 135:

     As soon as my dead body is found the newspapers will want to know why I did it. I'll tell them. And they may scarehead it as much as they like.

• scare-head

• asearched, headraces