eerie
or ee·ry
[eer-ee]
- uncanny, so as to inspire superstitious fear; weird: an eerie midnight howl.
- Chiefly Scot. affected with superstitious fear.
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Origin of eerie
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
Synonyms
See more synonyms for eerie on Thesaurus.com1. See weird.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for eerily
Contemporary Examples
The inauguration had to be held in the fortified Kremlin, surrounded by an eerily quiet city.
Behind Bars for the Holidays: 11 Political Prisoners We Want to See Free In 2015Movements.Org
December 25, 2014
The house was eerily silent on a Friday morning after a huge party.
Each of the women had eerily similar stories that they offered to share on the stand.
You could not order a taxi; the streets of Juarish were eerily deserted.
The video was filmed before the massive violence that convulsed Kiev this week, but its message is eerily prescient.
Historical Examples
My humor enters into it, in no obvious way but eerily like a gay ghost.
I, Mary MacLaneMary MacLane
Earthquakes are eerily quiet -- at first, anyway -- but this wasn't quiet.
Little BrotherCory Doctorow
Really, this was all so eerily interesting that she almost forgot the pain of her bandaged ankle.
The Mystery of Jockey HollowCleo Garis
The ship was eerily silent, dropping with a rising scream as the atmosphere touched the hull.
A World is BornLeigh Douglass Brackett
They sounded like small working sounds, blending in eerily mysterious fashion with a chorus of small voices.
Houlihan's EquationWalt Sheldon
eerie
- (esp of places, an atmosphere, etc) mysteriously or uncannily frightening or disturbing; weird; ghostly
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Word Origin
C13: originally Scottish and Northern English, probably from Old English earg cowardly, miserable
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
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Word Origin and History for eerily
eerie
adj.
c.1300, "fearful, timid," north England and Scottish variant of Old English earg "cowardly, fearful," from Proto-Germanic *argaz (cf. Old Frisian erg "evil, bad," Middle Dutch arch "bad," Dutch arg, Old High German arg "cowardly, worthless," German arg "bad, wicked," Old Norse argr "unmanly, voluptuous," Swedish arg "malicious").
Sense of "causing fear because of strangeness" is first attested 1792. Related: Eerily. Finnish arka "cowardly" is a Germanic loan-word.
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper