Adjacent Words

uncanny definitions

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WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

adj
1: suggesting the operation of supernatural influences; "an eldritch screech"; "the three weird sisters"; "stumps...had uncanny shapes as of monstrous creatures"- John Galsworthy; "an unearthly light"; "he could hear the unearthly scream of some curlew piercing the din"- Henry Kingsley [syn: eldritch, weird, uncanny, unearthly]
2: surpassing the ordinary or normal; "Beyond his preternatural affability there is some acid and some steel" - George Will; "his uncanny sense of direction" [syn: preternatural, uncanny]

Merriam Webster's

adjective Date: 1773 1. a. seeming to have a supernatural character or origin ; eerie, mysterious b. being beyond what is normal or expected ; suggesting superhuman or supernatural powers <an uncanny sense of direction> 2. chiefly Scottish severe, punishing Synonyms: see weird • uncannily adverb • uncanniness noun

Oxford Reference Dictionary

adj. (uncannier, uncanniest) seemingly supernatural; mysterious. Derivatives: uncannily adv. uncanniness n. Etymology: (orig. Sc. & N.Engl.) f. UN-(1) + CANNY

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Uncanny Un*can"ny, a. Not canny; unsafe; strange; weird; ghostly. --Sir W. Scott. -- Un*can"ni*ness, n. --G. Eliot.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

If you describe something as uncanny, you mean that it is strange and difficult to explain. The hero, Danny, bears an uncanny resemblance to Kirk Douglas... I had this uncanny feeling that Alice was warning me. ADJ • uncannily They have uncannily similar voices... ADV: usu ADV adj/adv

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

a. [Scotch.] Unpropitious, unsafe, in-opportune, out of the way, bad.

Moby Thesaurus

awe-inspiring, awesome, awful, awing, bizarre, blue, cadaverous, corpselike, creepy, deadly, deathlike, deathly, deathly pale, eerie, eldritch, ghastly, ghostlike, ghostly, grisly, gruesome, haggard, livid, lurid, macabre, mortuary, mysterious, numinous, pale, spookish, spooky, superhuman, supernormal, unco, uncolike, unearthly, unnatural, wan, weird