Word of the Day

: May 10, 2025

uncanny

adjective un-KAN-ee

What It Means

Uncanny is typically used to describe something that is strange or unusual in a way that is surprising or difficult to understand. It can also describe something that seems to have a supernatural character or origin.

// The child has an uncanny ability to recognize streets and locations she's seen only once or twice before.

// The lights suddenly flickered, and we were both overcome with an eerie, uncanny feeling.

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uncanny in Context

"... as Nelson Moultrie walked through the cemetery and observed trees growing in ways that resemble the shapes of people, like one that bore an uncanny resemblance to a pair of legs, she said she's already felt the presence of the people buried there." — Laura Liebman, The Post & Courier (Charleston, South Carolina), 21 Mar. 2025

Did You Know?

Uncanny describes that which unsettles us, such as disquieting observations, or mysterious situations and circumstances. Strip the word of its prefix, though, and you're left with canny, a word that can be used as a synonym for clever and prudent. While canny and uncanny don't appear to be antonyms, they both come from an early Scots word canny meaning "free from risk; wise, prudent, cautious." And in Scots, canny has for centuries had a secondary meaning more similar to that of its mysterious cousin: the Oxford English Dictionary defines a sense of the word used chiefly in negative constructions (e.g., “not canny”) to describe what is not safe to be involved with, or more broadly, what is not in accordance with what is right or natural, as in "the idea is not canny." Rather uncanny.