Elritch

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. Strangely frightening or ghostly, as though belonging to some uncanny and unnatural realm
2. Having an eerie, unsettling quality that seems to defy ordinary understanding or natural law
3. Weirdly alarming and supernatural in character, evoking a sense of mysterious dread

Etymology: "Elritch" is an alternative spelling of "eldritch," and its history is murky. Its second element, "-ritch," is generally taken to come from Old English "rīċe," meaning "realm" or "kingdom." The first element, "el-," is less certain: some scholars connect it to an Old English root meaning "foreign, strange, other," the source of the modern "else," while others trace it to "elf." The word's modern sense of the uncanny, weird, or sinister was revived in the twentieth century by H. P. Lovecraft, whose horror fiction made it a staple of supernatural description. Before that, it had been a rare and somewhat archaic term, so the word's current atmosphere owes much more to his writing than to its older record.