Word of the Day: May 6, 2009 ~ eerie

eerie (eer-ee) - adjective

Eerie means "inspiring inexplicable fear, dread, or uneasiness; strange and frightening."

First used in the written form around 1250-1300.  Eerie seems to come ultimately from the Old English word earg, meaning "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 of 'cowardly, fearful,' and it was not until the 18th century that it began to veer semantically from "afraid" to "causing fear." The poet Robert Burns was one of the first to use it 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.

Photy by Eggybird