Three times in one week I've come across the word "eldritch." Joan Aiken used it twice, and Hawthorne drops it in The Scarlet Letter. Join me in discovering the definition of an archaic adjective:.
Eldritch: eerie; weird; spooky.
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Origin: 1500–10; earlier elrich, equiv. to OE el- foreign, strange, uncanny + rīce kingdom; hence “of a strange country, pertaining to the Otherworld”; cf. OE ellende in a foreign land, exiled (c. G Elend penury, distress), Runic Norse alja-markir foreigner.
Suggesting the operation of supernatural influences; "an eldritch screech"; "the three weird sisters"; "stumps...had uncanny shapes as of monstrous creatures"- John Galsworthy; "an unearthly light"; "he could hear the unearthly scream of some curlew piercing the din"- Henry Kingsley.
4 comments:
"Eldritch" is such a cool word! I heard it the first time in The Moorchild by Eloise McGraw and liked it ever since.
Mmm, I'm a McGraw fan (Mara forever!), but I've not read the Moorchild. Have to look her up again.
I now love this word! Thanks! I shall try to use it today...
it sounds like such a fun word! I'll have to use it as well... this could be fun! : )
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