危言耸听

wēi yán sǒng tīng

to say alarming things just to frighten people

Character by character

危wēi
startling

言yán
words

耸sǒng
alarm

听tīng
hearing

这篇文章说喝冰水会致癌，完全是危言耸听。

That article saying iced water causes cancer is pure scaremongering.

Tone: negative (criticism).

The standard put-down for scare headlines. 绝非危言耸听, “this is no scaremongering”, is how writers insist a warning is real.

Learn this in Lesson 110 · HSK 7–9: 信息从哪儿来 (Where the news comes from)

A dialogue, a reading, word cards with audio and a drill that uses it, in Learn Chinese with Bao. The first lessons of every level are free.