spook
/spuːk/US/spʊk/
spook noun: a ghost or phantom.
Noun
spook (plural spooks)
- A ghost or phantom.
- The building was haunted by a couple of spooks.
- "I'll say what I think, no more and no less, and I won't be scared by you or your spooks into altering my opinions."1925 July – 1926 May, A[rthur] Conan Doyle, “(please specify the chapter number)”, in The Land of Mist (eBook no. 0601351h.html), Australia: Project Gutenberg Australia, published April 2019
- A scare or fright.
- The big spider gave me a spook.
- An undercover agent, spy, or intelligence analyst.
- From Ian Fleming to John Le Carre - authors have long been fascinated by the world of espionage. But, asks the BBC’s Gordon Corera, what do real life spooks make of fictional spies?2009 July 24, “Spies like them”, in BBC News Magazine
- The congressional study frets that Huawei’s and ZTE’s products could be used as Trojan horses by Chinese spooks.2012 October 13, “Huawei and ZTE: Put on hold”, in The Economist
- A black person.
- Some won't take spooks—hell, don't make no difference to me.1976, Paul Schrader, Taxi Driver, spoken by Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro)
- "[…] Dryades Street and that whole uptown neighborhood is gonna be worth a fortune once the white people take it back from you spooks and develop it. […]"2002 February, Don Spears, Playing for Keeps, Los Angeles: Milligan Books, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 179
- A metaphysical manifestation; an artificial distinction or construct.
- He who is infatuated with Man leaves persons out of account so far as that infatuation extends, and floats in an ideal, sacred interest. Man, you see, is not a person, but an ideal, a spook.1845, Max Stirner, translated by Steven T. Byington, Der Einzige und sein Eigentum; republished as The Ego and His Own, Dover, 2005
- A psychiatrist.
- Commonly, the surgeons view nonsurgeons with disdain. The most disdain is directed toward the “shrinks” or the “spooks,” as the psychiatrists are called.1975, Robert O. Pasnau, Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry, page 124
- A player who engages in hole carding by attempting to glimpse the dealer's hole card when the dealer checks under an ace or a 10 to see if a blackjack is present.
Verb
spook (third-person singular simple present spooks, present participle spooking, simple past and past participle spooked)
- To frighten or make nervous (especially by startling).
- The hunters were spooked when the black cat crossed their path. The movement in the bushes spooked the deer and they ran.
- As that was happening, an East Midlands train came through at 90mph. George [a Labrador] was spooked as the train went past him and ran backwards across the neighbouring slow lines and off towards the sidings.2022 August 10, “Stop & Examine”, in RAIL, number 963, page 71
- To become frightened (by something startling).
- The deer spooked at the sound of the dogs.
- To haunt.
spook meaning in Urdu, Bengali, Kannada and Indonesian
spook in Urdu
- بھوت, ہم زاد, پریت, بھگدڑ مچا دینا, چونکا دینا, ڈرا دینا
spook in Bengali
- ভূত, প্রেতাত্মা
spook in Kannada
- ಭೂತ, ಪ್ರೇತ, ದೆವ್ವ, ಪಿಶಾಚಿ, ಗಾಳಿಗ, ಹೇದೆ
spook in Indonesian
- ghost or phantom
- hantu
Examples of spook in a sentence
- The strange man with the large head spooked me out so much until I realized it was only a picture.
- All of a sudden he remembered the spooks, and it knocked him all of a heap.
- Most o' the horses are gunbroke an' they're less likely to spook than the cattle.
Forms of spook
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | spooks |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | spooks |
| present participle | spooking |
| past participle | spooked |
| past | spooked |
Origin of spook
Borrowed from Dutch spook (“ghost”), from Middle Dutch spooc (“spook, ghost”). Cognate with Middle Low German spôk, spûk (“apparition, ghost”), Middle High German gespük (“a haunting”), German Spuk, Danish spøge (“to haunt”), Swedish spöke (“ghost”).
Words formed from spook
Words that rhyme with spook
Questions about spook
- What does spook mean?
- Spook means a ghost or phantom.
- What is spook in Urdu?
- Spook in Urdu is بھوت, ہم زاد, پریت. See Spook meaning in Urdu.
- What part of speech is spook?
- Spook can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce spook?
- Spook is pronounced /spuːk/.
- What is the plural of spook?
- The plural of spook is spooks.
Words near spook in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: spook (page history and authors); spook (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); spook (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); spook (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-spook.ogg.
Cite this entry: “spook.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/spook. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.