scare vs scare the pants off

scare

verb
  • To frighten, terrify, startle, especially in a minor way. 

adj
  • lean; scanty 

noun
  • A cause of slight terror; something that inspires fear or dread. 

  • A minor fright. 

  • A device or object used to frighten. 

scare the pants off

verb
  • To scare or startle someone thoroughly. 

How often have the words scare and scare the pants off occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )