A.Word.A.Day --eldritch

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Today's Word

eldritch

PRONUNCIATION:

(EL-drich)

MEANING:

adjective: Weird; supernatural; eerie.

ETYMOLOGY:

Of uncertain origin. Perhaps from Old English elf + rice (realm). Earliest documented use: 1508.

USAGE:

“There will be readers who pick up Zoe Gilbert’s debut novel, Folk, find a sentence like ‘Verlyn Webbe has a wing in place of an arm’ and run screaming. This is a book full of eldritch, dreamlike stories.”
Alex Preston; You Don’t Have to Be Weird to Live Here ... But It Would Help a Lot; Financial Times (London, UK); Mar 3, 2018.

See more usage examples of eldritch in Vocabulary.com’s dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

The weakest living creature, by concentrating his powers on a single object, can accomplish something. The strongest, by dispensing his over many, may fail to accomplish anything. The drop, by continually falling, bores its passage through the hardest rock. The hasty torrent rushes over it with hideous uproar, and leaves no trace behind. -Thomas Carlyle, essayist and historian (4 Dec 1795-1881)

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