UNCANNY

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does uncanny mean? 

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

1. suggesting the operation of supernatural influences

2. surpassing the ordinary or normal

  Familiarity information: UNCANNY used as an adjective is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• UNCANNY (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Suggesting the operation of supernatural influences

Synonyms:

eldritch; uncanny; unearthly; weird

Context example:

he could hear the unearthly scream of some curlew piercing the din

Similar:

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

Sense 2

Meaning:

Surpassing the ordinary or normal

Synonyms:

preternatural; uncanny

Context example:

his uncanny sense of direction

Similar:

extraordinary (beyond what is ordinary or usual; highly unusual or exceptional or remarkable)

 Context examples 

What does that inexplicable, that uncanny turn of countenance mean?

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

There was something wild and uncanny about the place.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

“It’s uncanny,” Pete said, after it was over and they had caught their speech.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

I was only five feet away and directly in what should have been his line of vision. It was uncanny. I felt myself a ghost, what of my invisibility.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

Weddell seals have biological adaptations that allow them to dive deep—as much as of hundreds of meters—while hunting, but also an uncanny ability to find the breathing holes they need on the surface of the ice.

(Antarctic seals may use Earth's magnetic field to navigate while hunting, NSF)

Even though the Large Magellanic Cloud is one of our nearest galactic companions, we expect it should share some uncanny chemical similarity with distant, young galaxies from the early universe, said Marta Sewiło, an astronomer with NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

(Stellar Embryos in Nearby Dwarf Galaxy Contain Surprisingly Complex Organic Molecules, National Radio Astronomy Observatory)

This was all so strange and uncanny that a dreadful fear came upon me, and I was afraid to speak or move.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

How long it had been searching me through and through, and over and over, I cannot tell: so keen was it, and yet so cold, I felt for the moment superstitious—as if I were sitting in the room with something uncanny.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

It seemed a little uncanny to me, and I listened to her breathlessly.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)