## Meanings
1. Strange and mysterious in a way that is hard to explain and slightly unsettling.
2. Far beyond what is normal or expected, in an almost supernatural way.

## Examples
- He bore an uncanny resemblance to a man I had met years before.
- She has an uncanny ability to guess what people are thinking.

## Derived Forms
- uncannily
- uncanniness

## Roots and Affixes
- Root: *ǵneh₃-

## Etymology
From un- + canny; thus “beyond one's ken,” or outside one's familiar knowledge or perceptions. Compare Middle English unkanne (“unknown”). In the noun sense a translation of Sigmund Freud's usage of German unheimlich (Das Unheimliche, 1919).

## AI Etymology
Uncanny is formed from un- + canny; thus “beyond one's ken,” or outside one's familiar knowledge or perceptions. Compare Middle English unkanne (“unknown”). In the noun sense a translation of Sigmund Freud's usage of German unheimlich (Das Unheimliche, 1919). The analysis is mainly morphological: the modern form is built from the named base and affix. Important recorded forms include *ǵneh₃- (Proto-Indo-European). Current senses include strange and mysterious in a way that is hard to explain and slightly unsettling and far beyond what is normal or expected, in an almost supernatural way. The wider family includes derived forms such as uncannily and uncanniness.

## Topics
- Describing Qualities
- Word Formation & Derivatives

markdown

uncanny

Meanings

Thesaurus

Common collocations

Etymology

Topics

External links

Keyboard Shortcuts

General

Send feedback