unheimlich means weird, uncanny. It carries an Arena rating of 1658, earned across 5 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, unheimlich ranks #625 of 17,131 for Scariest Words, #2,410 of 17,124 for Most Sublime Words, #2,552 of 17,128 for Most Ponderous Words, #3,058 of 17,134 for Most Malleable Words.
unheimlich is pronounced /ʊnˈhaɪmlɪx/.
Why “unheimlich” is a great word
Eliciting a feeling of weird, supernatural, or unsettling strangeness, often due to the familiar becoming disturbingly unfamiliar. A borrowing from German unheimlich, from the prefix un- ("not") + heimlich ("secret, concealed; homely"), with the root in Heim ("home"). Unlike "eerie" (which suggests a vague, mysterious, and lonely strangeness, often born of silence or emptiness) or "grotesque" (which describes something absurdly distorted, bizarre, or physically unnatural in a repulsive way), unheimlich implies a more psychologically disturbing confrontation—the cognitive and emotional unease of encountering the repressed, or the intellectual chill of the déjà vu turned sinister. It is the porcelain doll whose eyes seem to follow you across the room, the mannequin posed just slightly too human to be mere wood and lacquer, or the automated voice that almost, but not quite, perfectly mimics a human sigh. It is the terror not of the unknown, but of what should have been known too well.
Etymology
Borrowed from German unheimlich (“unfamiliar”). Piecewise doublet of unhomely.
adj
- Weird, uncanny.e.g.“My point is that there is no grand single line, everything is in bits, & often absolutely dead, & always very unheimlich, almost macabre.” — 1936, Isiah Berlin, letter, 3 Jun 1936
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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