eerie

eerie
\ \ [13] Eerie seems to come ultimately from Old English earg ‘cowardly’, a descendant of prehistoric Germanic *arg-, although the connection has not been established for certain.
\ \ It emerged in Scotland and northern England in the 13th century in the sense ‘cowardly, fearful’, and it was not until the 18th century that it began to veer round semantically from ‘afraid’ to ‘causing fear’. Burns was one of the first to use it so in print: ‘Be thou a bogle by the eerie side of an auld thorn’. In the course of the 19th century its use gradually spread further south to become general English.

Word origins - 2ed. . 2005.

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  • Eerie — Saltar a navegación, búsqueda Eerie fue el título de una revista estadounidense especializada en historieta de terror, publicada por Warren Publishing desde 1966 a 1983. Contenido Constó de 145 números, en los que se publicaron por primera vez… …   Wikipedia Español

  • Eerie — Pays États Unis Langue anglais Périodicité bimensuel, puis 9 numéros/an Genre comics, horreur Prix au numéro de 0,35 USD à 2,75 USD Date de fondation début 1966 …   Wikipédia en Français

  • Eerie — Ee rie, Eery Ee ry, a. [Scotch, fr. AS. earh timid.] 1. Serving to inspire fear, esp. a dread of seeing ghosts; wild; weird; as, eerie stories. [1913 Webster] She whose elfin prancer springs By night to eery warblings. Tennyson. [1913 Webster] 2 …   The Collaborative International Dictionary of English

  • eerie — index sinister Burton s Legal Thesaurus. William C. Burton. 2006 …   Law dictionary

  • eerie — c.1300, fearful, timid, north England and Scottish variant of O.E. earg cowardly, fearful, from P.Gmc. *argaz (Cf. O.Fris. erg evil, bad, M.Du. arch bad, Du. arg, O.H.G. arg cowardly, worthless, Ger. arg bad, wicked, O.N. argr …   Etymology dictionary

  • eerie — *weird, uncanny Analogous words: *fantastic, bizarre, grotesque: *mysterious, inscrutable, arcane: *fearful, awful, dreadful, horrific: *strange, odd, queer, curious, peculiar …   New Dictionary of Synonyms

  • eerie — [adj] spooky awesome, bizarre, crawly, creepy, fantastic, fearful, frightening, ghostly, mysterious, scary, spectral, strange, supernatural, superstitious, uncanny, unearthly, weird; concept 537 Ant. funny, normal, ordinary, silly …   New thesaurus

  • eerie — ► ADJECTIVE (eerier, eeriest) ▪ strange and frightening. DERIVATIVES eerily adverb eeriness noun. ORIGIN originally northern English and Scots in the sense «fearful»: probably from Old English, «cowardly» …   English terms dictionary

  • eerie — or eery [ir′ē, ē′rē] adj. eerier, eeriest [N Eng dial & Scot < ME eri, filled with dread, prob. var. of erg, cowardly, timid < OE earg, akin to Ger arg, bad, wicked: for IE base see ORCHESTRA] 1. Now Rare timid or frightened; uneasy because …   English World dictionary

  • Eerie — For other uses, see Eerie (disambiguation). Eerie Eerie #11 (1967). Cover art by Joe Orlando Publication information Publisher …   Wikipedia

  • eerie — also eery adjective (eerier; est) Etymology: Middle English (northern dialect) eri Date: 14th century 1. chiefly Scottish affected with fright ; scared 2. so mysterious, strange, or unexpected as to send a chill up the spine < a coyote s eerie… …   New Collegiate Dictionary

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