uncanny

Valid in Scrabble

Scrabble points
12
Words With Friends
16
Letters
7
Pronunciation
/ʌnˈkæni/(US)

Definition of uncanny

3 senses · 2 parts of speech · etymology included

adj

  1. Strange, and mysteriously unsettling (as if supernatural); weird.
    “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.”
See all 3 definitions

adj

  1. Strange, and mysteriously unsettling (as if supernatural); weird.
    “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.”
  2. (UK, dialectal)Careless.

noun

  1. Something that is simultaneously familiar and strange, typically leading to feelings of discomfort.
    “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.”
    “As is well known, Freud introduced the concept of the uncanny into psychoanalysis in 1919 and used The Sandman as a prime illustration for his definition.”
    “In the preceding chapter, we saw that Freud linked the maternal body, death, and the afterlife with the uncanny in his famous essay "The Uncanny" ("Das Unheimliche").”
    “The uncanny involves feelings of uncertainty, in particular regarding the reality of who one is and what is being experienced.”
    “Freud argued that the uncanny was particularly associated with feelings of horror aroused by the figure of the paternal castrator, neglecting the tropes of woman and animal as a source of the uncanny.”

Definitions from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA.

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).

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