eerie

Pronunciation

• IPA: /ˈɪəɹi/ (UK); /ˈɪɹi/, /ˈɪɚi/ (US)^[1]

Etymology

inherited from Middle English eri (“fearful, timid”),^{[2][3][4][5][6][1]} a northern and Scottish word,^[6][3] a dialect variant of ergh,^[5][4] from inherited from Old English earg (“cowardly, fearful”).^{[2][5][6][4][1]} It is cognate with Old Frisian erg “evil, bad”, Dutch erg “bad”, Old High German arg “cowardly, worthless” and Old Norse argr “unmanly”.^[5][6][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Timid, or affected by superstitious fear, around 1300:^[6][7][5] the word described the frightened person, not the frightening thing.^[7][6]

Semantic evolution

In 1792 the meaning reversed, from “fearful” in the sense of “afraid” to “fearful” in the sense of “frightening”: causing fear because of its strangeness.^[7][5][6] Etymonline compares spooky, which also once meant both “causing fear” and “easily frightened”.^[6] The older sense survives only in Scottish use.^[3][4]

Timeline

• c. 885 – Old English earg, “cowardly”.^[5]
• before 1325 – eri, “fearful, timid”.^[5][7]
• c. 1375 – eerily.^[7]
• 1792 – “causing fear by strangeness”.^[7][5][6]

Modern meaning

Adjective

1. Strange and frightening in a mysterious way, as if supernatural.
2. (chiefly Scotland) Frightened, especially by superstition.

Word family

• eerily
• eeriness

Related words

• weird
• uncanny
• spooky
• arch

Usage notes

Random House distinguishes eerie, which suggests something ghostly that makes the flesh creep, from weird, which suggests supernatural forces at work in human affairs, unearthly, which seems to belong to another world, and uncanny, which seems to defy the laws of experience.^[4]

References

1. [1] [2] [3] Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. [1] [2] The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
3. [1] [2] [3] Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (1999), 2nd ed., New York: Random House
5. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
6. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] Harper, Douglas, Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press