an effigy in the shape of a man to frighten birds away from seeds
An effigy, typically made of straw and dressed in old clothes, fixed to a pole in a field to deter birds from eating seeds or crops planted there.
To splay rigidly outward, like the arms of a scarecrow.
The noun is derived from scare ("to frighten, startle, terrify") + crow ("bird of the genus Corvus"). The word displaced other terms such as bogle (now dialectal, dated), sewel or shewel, and shoy-hoy (perhaps imitative of the cry of crows). The verb is derived from the noun.