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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

eerie.

Inspiring fear, especially in a mysterious or shadowy way; strange, weird.

5 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

adj/ˈɪəɹi/Australia, Received-Pronunciation/ˈɪːɹɪj/British, Southern, Standard/ˈɪɹi//ˈɪɚi/US
  1. Inspiring fear, especially in a mysterious or shadowy way; strange, weird.

    The eerie sounds seemed to come from the graveyard after midnight.
  2. Frightened, timid.

    Scotland
Where this word comes from

From Middle English eri (“fearful”), from Old English earg (“cowardly, fearful”), from Proto-West Germanic *arg, from Proto-Germanic *argaz. Akin to Scots ergh, argh from the same Old English source. Doublet of argh.

noun/ˈɪəɹi/Australia, Received-Pronunciation/ˈɪːɹɪj/British, Southern, Standard/ˈɪɹi//ˈɪɚi/US
  1. An eerie creature or thing.

Where this word comes from

From Middle English eri (“fearful”), from Old English earg (“cowardly, fearful”), from Proto-West Germanic *arg, from Proto-Germanic *argaz. Akin to Scots ergh, argh from the same Old English source. Doublet of argh.

noun/ˈɪəɹi/Australia, Received-Pronunciation/ˈɪːɹɪj/British, Southern, Standard/ˈɪɹi//ˈɪɚi/US
  1. Alternative spelling of eyrie.

    alt-of · alternative
Where this word comes from

See eyrie.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.