EERIE (eerier, eeriest)

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

Irregular inflected forms: eerier    , eeriest   

 Dictionary entry overview: What does eerie mean? 

• EERIE (adjective)
  The adjective EERIE has 2 senses:

1. suggestive of the supernatural; mysterious

2. inspiring a feeling of fear; strange and frightening

  Familiarity information: EERIE used as an adjective is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• EERIE (adjective)

Comparative: eerier   
Superlative: eeriest   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Suggestive of the supernatural; mysterious

Context example:

an eerie feeling of deja vu

Similar:

supernatural (not existing in nature or subject to explanation according to natural laws; not physical or material)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Inspiring a feeling of fear; strange and frightening

Synonyms:

eerie; eery

Context example:

an eerie midnight howl

Similar:

strange; unusual (being definitely out of the ordinary and unexpected; slightly odd or even a bit weird)

 Context examples 

But, sir, as it grew dark, the wind rose: it blew yesterday evening, not as it blows now—wild and high—but 'with a sullen, moaning sound' far more eerie.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Every night, regularly, at nine, at twelve, at three, they lifted a nocturnal song, a weird and eerie chant, in which it was Buck’s delight to join.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

‘I was foolish enough to go into the empty wing,’ I answered. ‘But it is so lonely and eerie in this dim light that I was frightened and ran out again. Oh, it is so dreadfully still in there!’

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I caressed him, and he wagged his great tail; but he looked an eerie creature to be alone with, and I could not tell whence he had come.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

When Mrs. Fairfax had bidden me a kind good-night, and I had fastened my door, gazed leisurely round, and in some measure effaced the eerie impression made by that wide hall, that dark and spacious staircase, and that long, cold gallery, by the livelier aspect of my little room, I remembered that, after a day of bodily fatigue and mental anxiety, I was now at last in safe haven.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Yet, when this cherished volume was now placed in my hand—when I turned over its leaves, and sought in its marvellous pictures the charm I had, till now, never failed to find—all was eerie and dreary; the giants were gaunt goblins, the pigmies malevolent and fearful imps, Gulliver a most desolate wanderer in most dread and dangerous regions.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)