Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Inspiring inexplicable fear, dread, or uneasiness; strange and frightening.
- adj. Suggestive of the supernatural; mysterious. See Synonyms at weird.
- adj. Scots Frightened or intimidated by superstition.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- See eery.
Wiktionary
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Serving to inspire fear, esp. a dread of seeing ghosts; wild; weird.
- adj. Affected with fear; affrighted.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. suggestive of the supernatural; mysterious.
- adj. inspiring a feeling of fear; strange and frightening
Etymologies
- From Middle English eri ("fearful"), from Old English earg ("cowardly, fearful"). Akin to Scots ergh, argh from the same Old English source. (Wiktionary)
- Middle English eri, fearful, from Old English earg, cowardly. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“When the final buzzer sounded, the Woodinville junior was overcome with what she called an "eerie" feeling.”
“What's eerie is that Republicans then were saying some of the same things Democrats are saying now.”
The Washington Post: In run-up to midterms, glimmers of hope for Democrats?
“What really makes button, button so eerie, is its familiarity.”
“But as I was mulling this a little later, I was suddenly struck by one of those things that was probably already obvious to everyone else: There are a handful of strange inflection points where rock nerd culture and mass culture are in eerie synchrony for a few moments before skittering off in their respective ways for a bit — and one of them was my early teens.”
“The stage is completely clear, except for a chair in eerie spotlight.”
“Ordinary things gain eerie contours when illuminated by the imagination of this lonely girl.”
“Mysore, and they mirror the Maccabees story in eerie and powerful ways.”
“To call this tale eerie is a bit of an understatement.”
“STREATOR -- Soldiers 'paths may cross in eerie ways years after the battles have ended.”
“No word was spoken, and in eerie silence the strange ships crept stealthily onwards, and cast anchor beside the”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘eerie’.
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GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4087 more...
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important
shamanism, consol, sanguine, iffy, affinity, concatenation, honed, innumberable, aiden, inexorable, vet, suss and 176 more...
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macabre
words associated with the macabre & horror.
( open list, randomness )
more:
http://www.wordnik.co...ghastly, grisly, culeus, silly, gruesome, horrid, morbid, angelic, shocking, hideous, ghoulish, frightful and 135 more...
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
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ghost
This is Ghost List 2 ( the kind that go 'boo!' ) :P
( open list )
more:
http://www.wordnik.com/lists/macabrephantom, spectral, specter, spectre, spooky, poltergeist, haunt, spirit, banshee, cryptic, shadow, phantasm and 311 more...
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11
ballast, buoyant, clamber, detach, eerie, fathom, pique, probe, realize, rupture, sphere, submerge and 3 more...
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vocab 10
unscathed, ultimate, tedious, submerge, sphere, rupture, realize, probe, pique, fathom, eerie, detach and 3 more...
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Lesson 11 Vocabulary
Ballast, buoyant, detach, eerie, fathom, pique, probe, realize, rupture, sphere, submerge, tedious and 2 more...
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gre2
aberrant, aberration, aboveboard, abrasive, abstemious, acme, admonish, affable, affluent, alacrity, allegory, alleviate and 1818 more...
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SoSheShall's list
slurp, coeur, slurple, glop, perp, fluarxx, ropechno, herrherr, burrduhherrherr, sloppy, cheezie balls, eccentric and 634 more...
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Junk
walrus, fascination, broadway, fickle, downturn, bridge, gargle, rotunda, mesh, fab, shortlife, strumming and 304 more...
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Vocab
Words that I come across, and go blank, or want to clarify.
nefarious, edifice, malevolent, ostensible, folderol, bauble, livid, amnesty, calculus, saddlery, maisonette, cuisse and 423 more...
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words i love
mahogany, serenity, quell, requiem, parhelion, echo, surfacing, ethereal, melodic, vivid, sirenic, sprightly and 122 more...
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Just 'cause I like 'em, E
excoriate, exoskeleton, enclave, endemic, erstwhile, entwine, elliptical, élan, earflaps, earlobe, earthen, earthenware and 238 more...
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thegirlnextfloor's list
autumnal, avalanche, silhouette, antique, abysmal, scorch, sonic, surge, symmetry, whisper, penchant, dissipate and 349 more...
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Setting the Scene: Dark and Dreary
Words that lend to the dark and dreary atmosphere of gothic literature.
dark, dreary, shroud, shrouded, veiled, skeleton, skeletal, dead, death, murky, gloomy, lugubrious and 274 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for eerie.
oroboros Along with llama one of the few words that if you drop either the first or the second letter results in a homonym. Many such as, say, wrack result in a homonym only in the instance of dropping the first letter--not the second. May 2, 2007