Eerie

//ˈɪəɹi// adj, noun

adj, noun ·Common ·High school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    An eerie creature or thing.

    "Other of these terrible Eeries began now to congregate beneath the canoe, taking courage by the example of their cowardly companion, all alike curious about this charming visitant in the upper world."

  2. 2
    Alternative spelling of eyrie. alt-of, alternative

    "I'm not sure, indeed, that we didn't scare the eagles from their eeries; at all events we thought we did."

Adjective
  1. 1
    Inspiring fear, especially in a mysterious or shadowy way; strange, weird.

    "The eerie sounds seemed to come from the graveyard after midnight."

  2. 2
    Frightened, timid. Scotland

    "She began to feel eerie."

Adjective
  1. 1
    inspiring a feeling of fear; strange and frightening wordnet
  2. 2
    suggestive of the supernatural; mysterious wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
ghostlyspookystrangesupernaturalcreepyeldritch

Example

More examples

"The eerie silence struck terror into their hearts."

Etymology

Etymology 1

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.

Etymology 2

See eyrie.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.