was wotd|2007|March|15
English
Pronunciation
IPA|/��ldrɪt�/
audio|en-us-eldritch.ogg|Audio (US)
Etymology
OE. ælf "elf" + rice#Old_English|rī�e "realm, kingdom"
Adjective
en-adj
- unearthly, alien, supernatural, weird, spooky, eerie
Quotations
timeline|
1700s=1790 1798??|
1800s=1850 1886|
1900s=1922 1925 1936
1790 � w:Robert Burns|Robert Burns, s:Tam o' Shanter|Tam o' Shanter
:So Maggie runs, the witches follow,<br/>Wi' mony an eldritch skriech and hollo.
1798 � w:Samuel Taylor Coleridge|Samuel Taylor Coleridge, s:The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere (1798)|The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere
:I look'd upon the rotting Sea,<br/>And drew my eyes away;<br/>I look'd upon the eldritch deck<br/>And there the dead men lay.
1850 � w:Nathaniel Hawthorne|Nathaniel Hawthorne, s:The Scarlet Letter|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 � w:Robert Louis Stevenson|Robert Louis Stevenson, s:Kidnapped|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 � w:Clark Ashton Smith|Clark Ashton Smith, s:Remembered Light|Remembered Light
:Till the twilight shivered with outcry of eldritch voices<br/>Like pain's last cry ere oblivion
1925 � w:H. P. Lovecraft|H. P. Lovecraft, s:Supernatural Horror in Literature|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 � w:Robert E. Howard|Robert E. Howard, s:The Hour of the Dragon|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.
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