eerie
Americanadjective
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uncanny, so as to inspire superstitious fear; weird
an eerie midnight howl.
-
Chiefly Scot. affected with superstitious fear.
adjective
Synonym Usage
See weird.
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of eerie
First recorded in 1250–1300; Middle English eri, dialectal variant of argh, Old English earg “cowardly”; cognate with Old Frisian erg, Old Norse argr “evil,” German arg “cowardly”
Explanation
Eerie means spooky, creepy or suggestively supernatural. If it's eerie, it's sure to make the hair on the back of your neck stand up. Back in the 1300s when eerie first came on the scene, it meant "fearful or timid." It took a good 500 years or so before it morphed into the adjective we know today, which now means "causing fear because of strangeness." And the strangeness is key: Something that's eerie isn't just scary. It's mysterious, ghostly, and gives you the creeps. Like dark old castles, misty graveyards and creaky sounds in the middle of the night.
Vocabulary lists containing eerie
The Grim Reader: Wicked Words of Grave Importance for Halloween
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Uncanny, Creepy, or Downright Scary: Words For Halloween
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NAEP Test Words
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Sheppard described the house as being "silent" and "very eerie" when he arrived.
From BBC • Jun. 25, 2026
They also can’t forget the eerie reality that the S&P 500 semiconductors index has traded similarly to the way it did in the late 1990s—just before the dot-com bubble burst.
From Barron's • Jun. 16, 2026
It’s not gritty and harsh, but rather stunning and lovely — an eerie contrast to the terror and bloodshed of the day itself.
From Los Angeles Times • May 29, 2026
It bears similarity to Parsons' first YouTube video - "Found Footage" - which has 80m views and featured shaky 90s camcorder footage of the eerie, yellow office block.
From BBC • May 29, 2026
The deserted campground seemed eerie, like a ghost town.
From "Earthquake Terror" by Peg Kehret
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
