eldritch

Definition from Wiktionary, a free dictionary

Contents 1 English 1.1 Pronunciation 1.2 Etymology 1.3 Adjective 1.3.1 Quotations

[edit] English

[edit] Pronunciation

• IPA: /ˈɛldrɪtʃ/
•  Audio (US)^{help, file}

[edit] Etymology

Middle English from earlier elrich, equiv. to OE el- (“‘foreign, strange, uncanny’”) (see else ) + rīċe "realm, kingdom" (see rich ); hence “of a strange country, pertaining to the Otherworld”; cf. OE ellende "in a foreign land, exiled" (c. Ger. Elend "penury, distress"), Runic Norse alja-markir "foreigner"

[edit] Adjective

eldritch (comparative more eldritch, superlative most eldritch)

1. unearthly, alien, supernatural, weird, spooky, eerie

[edit] Quotations

				1790 1798??	1850 1886	1922 1925 1936
ME: [[{{{enm}}}]] «	15th c.	16th c.	17th c.	18th c.	19th c.	20th c.	21st c.

• 1790 — Robert Burns, Tam o' Shanter

  So Maggie runs, the witches follow,
  Wi' mony an eldritch skriech and hollo.

• 1798 — Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere

  I look'd upon the rotting Sea,
  And drew my eyes away;
  I look'd upon the eldritch deck
  And there the dead men lay.

• 1850 — Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, ch VII

  Pearl, in utter scorn of her mother's attempt to quiet her, gave an eldritch scream, and then became silent.

• 1886 — Robert Louis Stevenson, Kidnapped, ch 2

  And the woman, whose voice had risen to a kind of eldritch sing-song, turned with a skip, and was gone.

• 1922 — Clark Ashton Smith, Remembered Light

  Till the twilight shivered with outcry of eldritch voices
  Like pain's last cry ere oblivion

• 1925 — H. P. Lovecraft, Supernatural Horror in Literature

  The Scandinavian Eddas and Sagas thunder with cosmic horror, and shake with the stark fear of Ymir and his shapeless spawn; whilst our own Anglo-Saxon Beowulf and the later Continental Nibelung tales are full of eldritch weirdness.

• 1936 — Robert E. Howard, The Hour of the Dragon, ch 19

  Like phantoms they passed across his limited range of vision and vanished, with only a fading glow to tell of their passing. Their appearance was indescribably eldritch. They were not Stygians, not anything Conan had ever seen. He doubted if they were even humans. They were like black ghosts, stalking ghoulishly along the haunted tunnels.