uncanny means strange, and mysteriously unsettling (as if supernatural); weird. It carries an Arena rating of 1987, earned across 22 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, uncanny ranks #90 of 17,127 for Words That Escaped Their Books, #129 of 17,134 for Most Malleable Words, #2,930 of 17,143 for Best Fossil-Poetry Words, #3,184 of 17,126 for Most Elegant Words.
uncanny is pronounced /ʌnˈkæni/.
Why “uncanny” is a great word
Strange or mysterious in a way that is unsettling, often because it seems to have a supernatural quality or an inexplicable familiarity. From the prefix un- ("not") + canny ("shrewd, knowing, safe"), thus meaning "beyond one's ken or knowledge"; first recorded in the 1590s. The specific psychological sense, as a noun, is a translation of Sigmund Freud's use of German 'unheimlich' in his 1919 essay 'Das Unheimliche'. Unlike "eerie" (which suggests a hollow, ghostly strangeness rising from desolate places) or "supernatural" (which names the actual violation of natural law), "uncanny" lives in the disquieting nearness of the known made strange—the almost-perfect replica of a human face in a wax figure, the childhood home glimpsed decades later with its windows slightly rearranged, the way a stranger’s voice echoes your father’s exact timbre—each a whisper at the edge of perception, where the mind falters between trust and dread, and familiarity itself turns alien.
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).
adj
- Strange, and mysteriously unsettling (as if supernatural); weird.e.g.“He bore an uncanny resemblance to the dead sailor.”
- Careless.
noun
- Something that is simultaneously familiar and strange, typically leading to feelings of discomfort.e.g.“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.” — 1982, Samuel Weber, The Legend of Freud, page 20:
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
Words closest in meaning
By meaning, not spelling — each word's AI semantic fingerprint, nearest first.
- uncanniness 72% match — The state or condition of being uncanny. vs uncanny →
- uncannily 72% match — In an uncanny manner. vs uncanny →
- unheimlich 69% match — Weird, uncanny. vs uncanny →
- strange 63% match — Not normal; odd, unusual, surprising, out of the ordinary, often with a negative connotation. vs uncanny →
- unearthliness 63% match — The characteristic of being unearthly; ethereal; otherworldly. vs uncanny →
- eldritch 61% match — Unearthly, supernatural, eerie, preternatural. vs uncanny →
- selcouth 60% match — Strange, unusual, rare; unfamiliar; marvellous, wondrous. vs uncanny →
- unwontedness 60% match — The quality of being unwonted or unusual; deviation from custom or habit. vs uncanny →