SPOOKS Synonyms: 132 Similar and Opposite Words

spooks 1 of 2

noun

plural of spook

as in spies

a person who tries secretly to obtain information for one country in the territory of another usually unfriendly country Russia recalled its spooks after the collapse of the Soviet Union

Synonyms & Similar Words

Relevance

as in spirits

the soul of a dead person thought of especially as appearing to living people Halloween is the night when spooks and goblins are said to roam abroad

Synonyms & Similar Words

spooks

2 of 2

verb

present tense third-person singular of spook

as in scares

to strike with fear the sudden noise spooked her out of her skin

Synonyms & Similar Words

Antonyms & Near Antonyms

Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Recent Examples of spooks

Noun

Portofiro and the baroque universe surrounding it—communists on-world, techno-fascists offplanet, and all manner of augmentoids and spooks in the immaterial planes between—can make for a dizzying read. — Alex James Kane, Forbes.com, 22 May 2026 Remember that movement spooks turkeys more than anything else. — Bruce Brady, Outdoor Life, 8 Apr. 2026 Anthropic spooks cyber firms; eyes IPO. — John Kell, Fortune, 1 Apr. 2026 The translation squeaks and spooks with imagery of haunts and death. — Amber McBride, Literary Hub, 5 Nov. 2025 There are even more spooks in the follow-up season, The Haunting of Bly Manor. — Kelsie Gibson, PEOPLE, 23 Oct. 2025 Leon Kennedy and Claire Redfield are iconic characters that are wonderfully resurrected in this remake, the spooks are top notch, and the whole thing looks, sounds, and plays unbelievably. — Oliver Brandt, MSNBC Newsweek, 28 Aug. 2025

Verb

That confidence spooks your rivals! — Usa Today, USA Today, 4 Nov. 2025

Recent Examples of Synonyms for spooks

Noun

To Robby and Michael, suddenly seeing their parents in the news again as spies was painful.

— Amy Weiss-Meyer, The Atlantic, 10 July 2026
Reddick loads her genre-blurring tale with outlandish intrigue involving Soviet spies, a capitalist cult and a roving choir that doubles as a Greek chorus.

— Theater Critic, Los Angeles Times, 8 July 2026

Definition of spies

Verb

As horror franchises evolve across installments, there’s a natural tendency for the creatives behind them to overthink things and get a bit too lost in the sauce of mythos and worldbuilding and topping themselves with bigger, juicier scares.

— Alison Foreman, IndieWire, 10 July 2026
What scares many of them is the loss of predictability, the sense of no longer recognizing their own reactions.

— Dr. Sarah Berg, Time, 9 July 2026

Definition of scares

Noun

A man of the people, a working-class hero, a diamond in the rough unearthed by political operatives riding the high of Mamdani’s rise—the narrative, in and of itself, was a winning strategy.

— Brady Brickner-Wood, New Yorker, 15 July 2026
Unbeknownst to him, the bottle contained the same nerve agent investigators believe Russian operatives had used three months earlier to poison a former spy in nearby Salisbury.

— Faith Karimi, CNN Money, 11 July 2026

Definition of operatives

Noun

The music starts to shift beginning with the third episode, when Lestat becomes overwhelmed by the apparition of his abusive maker and other ghosts, including Claudia, whose killing he’d been forced to witness firsthand.

— Hannah Giorgis Yohannes, Vanity Fair, 13 July 2026
When nighttime falls, the game’s friendly parkgoers turn into zombies and ghosts who chase the park ranger, armed with nothing but a Frisbee deployed by the keyboard’s space bar.

— Elizabeth Hernandez, Denver Post, 9 July 2026

Definition of ghosts

Noun

Two men who were with Salgado Araujo disputed the government’s account, saying the agents’ vehicles bumped into them and then swayed into the van, forcing them to stop.

— Julianna Bragg, CNN Money, 15 July 2026
The industry tends to shed agents, especially new ones — the median income for Realtors who have been working for less than two years is $8,100.

— Clio Chang, Curbed, 14 July 2026

Definition of agents

Noun

Today, the massive complex attracts paranormal investigators who report apparitions, voices, and other unexplained phenomena.

— Kaif Shaikh, Interesting Engineering, 15 June 2026
Why then, when discussing body image after weight changes, is our culture reaching for the language of vexing apparitions and death?

— Virgie Tovar, Forbes.com, 14 June 2026

Definition of apparitions

Browse Nearby Words

spookish

spooks

spooky

See all Nearby Words

Cite this Entry

Style

“Spooks.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/spooks. Accessed 17 Jul. 2026.

Copy Citation

Synonyms of spooks

noun

verb

Example Sentences

Browse Nearby Words

Cite this Entry

More from Merriam-Webster on spooks

More from Merriam-Webster

Word of the Day

obdurate

Popular in Grammar & Usage

Merriam-Webster’s Great Big List of Words You Love to Hate

Is that lie 'bald-faced' or 'bold-faced'?

'A' or 'an'? What about before 'h'? An Indefinite Article Guide

Why is '-ed' sometimes pronounced at the end of a word?

Commonly Misspelled Words

Popular in Wordplay

14 Phobias You Probably Haven't Heard Of

It's a Scorcher! Words for the Summer Heat

The Longest Long Words List

Ten Words Ending with a Silent ‘T’

The Words of the Week - Jul 17

Popular

Merriam-Webster’s Great Big List of Words You Love to Hate

14 Phobias You Probably Haven't Heard Of

It's a Scorcher! Words for the Summer Heat

Games & Quizzes