adjective
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ghostly or eerie
a spooky house
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resembling or appropriate to a ghost
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easily frightened; highly strung
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Adjectives
Etymology
Origin of spooky
Explanation
Spooky things make a shiver go down your spine—they're scary or creepy. A movie's spooky music might be enough to make you cover your eyes in fear. This informal adjective is perfect for talking about things that make you feel afraid or deeply uneasy. Haunted houses are spooky, and the sound of quiet footsteps crunching through the leaves outside your tent at night are spooky too—at least until your brother yells, "Boo!" You can also use spooky to mean "easily spooked," like a nervous horse that jumps at the slightest sound.
Vocabulary lists containing spooky
October Words
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Strange
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Strange
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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.
See Examples For:
There was just something about the light and the water and the slightly spooky feeling.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 22, 2026
What’s a nine-letter “cutesy term for spooky snakes”? Sharpen your wordplay skills with today’s crossword.
From Slate ● Sep. 15, 2026
Although spooky, these human-like responses can be explained quite simply.
From BBC ● Sep. 9, 2026
Spawned from a mid-pandemic struggle with depression, it’s a lush and slightly spooky psychedelic-folk excursion that O’Brien made with help from the producer Paul Epworth, the jazz musician Shabaka Hutchings and Radiohead’s drummer, Philip Selway.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 8, 2026
It was spooky, with ghosts and spirituals and ‘ ‘ha’nts” seeming to be in the very atmosphere when finally we all came out of the church, going back home.
From "The Autobiography of Malcolm X" by Alex Malcolm X;Hailey
At the time, Imagineering wanted to update a relatively “common” chandelier with a spookier, spider web-inspired look.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 17, 2025
While Ortega wore a bright pink Valentino dress to last year's Met Gala, this year she went with a distinctly spookier and more gothic vibe.
From BBC ● May 2, 2023
As Angela digs into the mystery of the recording, “KIMI” begins shifting into a spookier register.
From New York Times ● Feb. 9, 2022
A more apt slogan for these games might be lonelier, quieter, spookier.
From Washington Post ● Jan. 19, 2022
I kept walking and walking, and it kept getting darker and darker and spookier and spookier.
From "The Catcher in the Rye" by J. D. Salinger
Rather, they are merely Halloween-inspired, containing candies that are shaped like bats and cats — undeniably two of the spookiest creatures.
From Salon ● Sep. 29, 2025
Not any more, now that I put together this guide to what to do in and around New York City during the year’s spookiest month.
From New York Times ● Sep. 30, 2023
Consolidation has long been the publishing industry’s buzziest, and probably spookiest, existential threat.
From Slate ● Aug. 11, 2023
With October receding behind us, it’s time to hang up our spookiest costumes.
From Seattle Times ● Nov. 3, 2022
"Mother said this was the spookiest place in the whole house—except the cellar."
From Billie Bradley and Her Inheritance The Queer Homestead at Cherry Corners by Janet D. Wheeler
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.
