eerie
Americanadjective
-
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
Looking to grow your vocabulary? Check out this interactive, curated word list from our team of English language specialists at Vocabulary.com – one of over 17,000 lists we've built to help learners worldwide!
Uncanny, Creepy, or Downright Scary: Words For Halloween
Interested in learning more words like this one? Our team at Vocabulary.com has got you covered! You can review flashcards, quiz yourself, practice spelling, and more – and it's all completely free to use!
List 8
Want to remember this word for good? Start your learning journey today with our library of interactive, themed word lists built by the experts at Vocabulary.com – we'll help you make the most of your study time!
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.
See Examples For:
The eerie glow provided a fitting finale to spookiest night of the year, delighting skywatchers and photographers alike.
From BBC ● Nov. 1, 2026
The South later resumed border loudspeaker broadcasts for the first time in six years, including K-pop and international news, while the North began transmitting strange, eerie sounds across the frontier, unsettling South Korean residents.
From Barron's ● Oct. 20, 2026
Holmes maintains both her innocence and her eerie smile, a rictus of empathy.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 14, 2026
But these sights are drained of their warmth, depicted with a cold, eerie hum that, when it bleeds into the roar of suffering miles away, becomes a deafening cacophony.
From Salon ● Sep. 21, 2026
Despite this, however, there was an eerie calmness to the room.
From "City Spies" by James Ponti
Schlossberg, we should mention here, is Kennedy’s cousin once removed, which adds an even eerier aura to the story.
From Slate ● Aug. 7, 2024
An eerier kind of togetherness emerged in John Jasperse’s “Visitation,” for Doug LeCours, Tim Bendernagel and Cynthia Koppe.
From New York Times ● Dec. 2, 2022
From The Carpenter’s version of “Superstar” during the show, the finale shifted to the eerier cover by Sonic Youth.
From Seattle Times ● Feb. 15, 2022
Even eerier was the lead story, about Adolf Hitler and the rise of his Third Reich.
From Washington Post ● Sep. 26, 2021
They are the mysterious voices of the woodland which change at about this time often to an eerier and lonelier note.
From Old Plymouth Trails by Winthrop Packard
With worries about the spread of gun ownership in his head, Fogerty devised one of his eeriest productions for this swampy psych-rock number.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 3, 2025
Otherwise, the town’s eeriest feature is its isolation.
From Washington Post ● Jun. 27, 2022
Plenty has been written about no crowds in sporting stadiums, but a Wales and England encounter in the Six Nations presented perhaps the eeriest atmosphere yet.
From BBC ● Feb. 27, 2021
Every winter I reread — sometimes for myself, sometimes with my children — Susan Cooper’s “The Dark Is Rising,” surely one of the eeriest novels there is.
From New York Times ● Nov. 19, 2020
The eeriest phase of the investigation began when the police, holding their flickering lanterns high, entered the hotel basement, a cavern of brick and timber measuring 50 by 165 feet.
From "The Devil in the White City" by Erik Larson
Random Word
Spin the wheel and learn a new word!
Get a wordDefinitions 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.
