uncanny
/ʌnˈkæni/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.33 in modern English
12
Scrabble Score
7
Letters
3
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
adj
Strange, and mysteriously unsettling (as if supernatural); weird.
noun
Something that is simultaneously familiar and strange, typically leading to feelings of discomfort.
Example Sentences
- "He bore an uncanny resemblance to the dead sailor."
- "An eerie feeling came over me. She seemed uncanny and fateful."
- "These men had some uncanny knack of knowing when the steel was right, and like many such things, it just could not be put into a textbook on the subject."
- "The new iPhone promises “next level” photography with push-button ease. But the results look odd and uncanny."
- "These videos also allow us to register through fresh eyes the hyperabundance that exists in our country, and experience just how uncanny some of it really is."
- "This uncontrollable possibility—the possibility of a certain loss of control—can, perhaps, explain why the uncanny remains a marginal notion even within psychoanalysis itself."
Etymology
From un- + canny; thus “beyond one's ken,” or outside one's familiar knowledge or perceptions. Compare Middle English unkanne (“unknown”). In the noun sense a translation of Sigmund Freud's usage of German unheimlich (Das Unheimliche, 1919).
Word Breakdown
- Root: *ǵneh₃-
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ʌnˈkæni/
Usage
- British usage