spook
/spʊk/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.88 in modern English
11
Scrabble Score
5
Letters
1
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A metaphysical manifestation; an artificial distinction or construct.
noun
A player who engages in hole carding by attempting to glimpse the dealer's hole card when the dealer checks under an ace or a 10 to see if a blackjack is present.
Slang
Example Sentences
- "The building was haunted by a couple of spooks."
- ""I'll say what I think, no more and no less, and I won't be scared by you or your spooks into altering my opinions.""
- "The big spider gave me a spook."
- "From Ian Fleming to John Le Carre - authors have long been fascinated by the world of espionage. But, asks the BBC’s Gordon Corera, what do real life spooks make of fictional spies?"
- "The congressional study frets that Huawei’s and ZTE’s products could be used as Trojan horses by Chinese spooks."
- "The hard right is on the march in Europe. The Alternative for Germany, a party declared extremist by domestic spooks, scored a record result in a national election in February."
Etymology
Borrowed from Dutch spook (“ghost”), from Middle Dutch spooc (“spook, ghost”). Cognate with Middle Low German spôk, spûk (“apparition, ghost”), Middle High German gespük (“a haunting”), German Spuk, Danish spøge (“to haunt”), Swedish spöke (“ghost”).
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: spook, spooc
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /spʊk/