different between unearthly vs uncanny

English

Etymology

From un- +? earthly.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?n????.li/
• (US) IPA^(key): /?n???.li/

Adjective

unearthly (comparative unearthlier, superlative unearthliest)

1. Not of the earth; non-terrestrial.
   • 2012, Charles Lockwood, Tragedy at Honda, page 65

     In the hard glare of the Searchlight, which had been manned by Seaman 2nd class Evans W. Watkins, the rock had the unearthly look of a miniature satellite in space.

2. Preternatural or supernatural.
3. Strange, enigmatic, or mysterious.
   • 1819 [publ. Sep 1858], James Morton, "The Poetical Remains of the late Dr. John Leyden, with Memoirs of his Life", The Calcutta Review, volume 31, page 25

     I then set out to survey the town in the self-same palankeen. The houses had all of them an unearthly appearance, by no means consonant to our ideas of Oriental splendor.

4. Ideal beyond the mundane.
   • 2000, Aileen Ribeiro, The Gallery of Fashion, page 42

     By the late sixteenth century Elizabeth had become the icon-like Virgin Queen of legend, an image created, to a large extent, by her extraordinary, unearthly costume and appearance.

5. Ridiculous, ludicrous, or outrageous.
   • 1927, The Walther League Messenger, volume 36, page 225

     I see my boys all wearing the same unearthly trousers, the same hair cuts, garish ties and sweaters, all rolling their socks and entertaining the same crazy notions about everything.

Translations

English

Etymology

From un- +? canny; thus “beyond one's ken,” or outside one's familiar knowledge or perceptions. Compare Middle English unkanne (“unknown”).

Pronunciation

• (US) IPA^(key): /?n?kæni/
• Rhymes: -æni

Adjective

uncanny (comparative uncannier, superlative uncanniest)

1. Strange, and mysteriously unsettling (as if supernatural); weird.
2. (Britain dialectal) Careless.

Translations

Noun

uncanny

1. (psychology, psychoanalysis, Freud) Something that is simultaneously familiar and strange, typically leading to feelings of discomfort; translation of Freud's usage of the German "unheimlich" (literally "unsecret").
   • 2011, Espen Dahl, Hans-Gunter Heimbrock, In Between: The Holy Beyond Modern Dichotomies, page 99:

     [The uncanny is] something that was long familiar to the psyche and was estranged from it only through being repressed. The link with repression now illuminates Schelling?s definition of the uncanny as ‘something that should have remained hidden and has come into the open.’ (Freud: 2003, 147 f)

   • 2003, Nicholas Royle, The Uncanny, page 1 [1]:

     The uncanny involves feelings of uncertainty, in particular regarding the reality of who one is and what is being experienced.

   • 2011, Anneleen Masschelein, The Unconcept: The Freudian Uncanny in Late-Twentieth-Century Theory, page 2 [2]:

     Because the uncanny affects and haunts everything, it is in constant transformation and cannot be pinned down.

   • 2001, Diane Jonte-Pace, Speaking the Unspeakable, page 81 [3]:

     In the preceding chapter, we saw that Freud linked the maternal body, death, and the afterlife with the uncanny in his famous essay "The Uncanny" ("Das Unheimliche").

   • 1982, Samuel Weber, The Legend of Freud, page 20 [4]:

     This uncontrollable possibility—the possibility of a certain loss of control—can, perhaps, explain why the uncanny remains a marginal notion even within psychoanalysis itself.

   • 2005, Barbara Creed, Phallic Panic, page vii [5]:

     Freud argued that the uncanny was particularly associated with feelings of horror aroused by the figure of the paternal castrator, neglecting the tropes of woman and animal as a source of the uncanny.

   • 1994, Sonu Shamdasani and Michael Münchow, Speculations after Freud, page 186 [6]:

     As is well known, Freud introduced the concept of the uncanny into psychoanalysis in 1919 and used The Sandman as a prime illustration for his definition.

Usage notes

In common modern usage, "canny" and "uncanny" are no longer antonyms, although they are not synonyms.

Derived terms

• uncanny valley
• uncannily

Related terms

Translations

References