eerie

Everyday

1. Eerie means strange and frightening in a quiet, mysterious way, making you feel uneasy. tree →
2. Eerily means strangely, as in eerily quiet or eerily similar. tree →

In the lessons

A favourite word in ghost stories and spooky settings: empty houses, fog, silence, owls at night. It builds suspense for the reader. Phrases: eerie silence, eerie feeling, eerie glow, eerily quiet.

Examples

• An eerie silence filled the old house. tree →
• The fog gave the graveyard an eerie look. tree →
• We heard an eerie howl in the night. tree →
• The empty school felt eerie in the holidays. tree →
• The moon cast an eerie glow over the lake. tree →
• The two drawings were eerily similar. tree →
• There was something eerie about the abandoned fairground. tree →
• At first he thought this eerie, but soon concluded rightly that the clock had run down. tree →

Note

Spelling: eerie (not «eery» in standard use; and not Lake Erie, which sounds the same). Eerie is quiet-scary, not loud-scary. Eerier, eeriest.