uncanny: Dictionary.com Word of the Day

	Word of the Day for Thursday, October 25, 2012 uncanny \uhn-KAN-ee\, adjective: 1. Having or seeming to have a supernatural or inexplicable basis; beyond the ordinary or normal; extraordinary: uncanny accuracy; an uncanny knack of foreseeing trouble. 2. Mysterious; arousing superstitious fear or dread; uncomfortably strange: Uncanny sounds filled the house. Again the mood is uncanny, with strange perturbations in the atmosphere, the abstruse word choice purposely jarring: “suzerain,” “diacritic,” “acephalous,” “zebu,” “argute.” -- Charles Bukowski, introduction by David Stephen Calonne, Absence of the Hero She saw him put his hand on the shoulder of their mother's chair, touch the fringe on a lampshade, as if to confirm for himself that the uncanny persistence of half-forgotten objects, all in their old places, was not some trick of the mind. -- Marilynne Robinson, Home Uncanny once meant "mischievous." The association with the supernatural arose in the 1770s. The word canny means careful, astute, skilled and frugal. Read the full entry | See synonyms | Comment on today's word | Suggest tomorrow's word Yesterday's word | Previous words | Help Words of the Day? How about words of timeless wisdom? Introducing our Quotes channel! "Life itself is a quotation." - Jorge Luis Borges Check out the Quote of the Day ›› Whom: is this rare pronoun really dead? To whom it may concern: Over the past 200 years written use of the pronoun whom has declined by half, and half again over the last 50. It makes sense. In the colloquial world of email and texting, thinking about the correct usage of whom can just slow writers down. The word can make sentences sound... Read more ›› Dictionary.com Word of the Day You are subscribed to the Word of the Day as: manyanget@gmail.com Subscriber since: March 22, 2010 Unsubscribe from the Word of the Day To subscribe to the Word of the Day by email, please send a blank message to: join-wordoftheday@lists.lexico.com ©2012 by Dictionary.com, LLC. 555 12th Street Suite 500 Oakland CA 94607 Subscriptions to the Word of the Day can also be managed online   Tell a friend about the Word of the Day!