Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Weird, uncanny.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Borrowing from German unheimlich.

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Examples

  • The German term unheimlich (literally "un-home-like") seems apt here.

    Strange Fiction 4 Hal Duncan 2006

  • The German term unheimlich (literally "un-home-like") seems apt here.

    Archive 2006-07-01 Hal Duncan 2006

  • Some people are amused that I use phrases like "unheimlich" and "belly fire" in my music reviews.

    lazarus Diary Entry lazarus 2003

  • He contended that the link between the German words for “uncanny” (unheimlich) and “familiar” (heimlich) suggests an inner connection between the two.

    Bloodlust Russell Jacoby 2011

  • In German, however, unheimlich (uncanny) stands opposite to heimlich (familiar; belonging to the house, homey).

    Bloodlust Russell Jacoby 2011

  • It's an unthreatening simulacrum of dark passion in which everything wild and unheimlich about sexual obsession, murder, disfigurement and – my personal favourite – Dostoyevskian self-loathing is benumbed with unremittingly sweet tunes many of which, according to Kit and the Widow's turn at August's Comedy Prom, Lloyd Webber recycled from older, better composers.

    I don't know how to love him (the Phantom of the Opera, that is) 2011

  • He contended that the link between the German words for “uncanny” (unheimlich) and “familiar” (heimlich) suggests an inner connection between the two.

    Bloodlust Russell Jacoby 2011

  • In German, however, unheimlich (uncanny) stands opposite to heimlich (familiar; belonging to the house, homey).

    Bloodlust Russell Jacoby 2011

  • It ' s the interaction between Miles, who gleefully delights in being a " bad boy, " and the governess, who only wants to save his soul, that underpins the play and contributes most to the feeling of unheimlich, where something is strange because it is too familiar, and in this case, a public manifestation of something to be kept secret.

    A Haunting Tale by Candlelight Julie Steinberg 2010

  • But even if there is no explicit postulation of affect, the term deeply implies a negative reaction in its connotations, its associations with the other-worldly, the unnatural, the eery, the eldritch, the unheimlich.

    Archive 2008-01-01 Hal Duncan 2008

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