Word.ws English Dictionary

unheimlich

/ʊnˈhaɪmlɪx/

unheimlich adjective: weird, uncanny.

Adjective

unheimlich (comparative more unheimlich, superlative most unheimlich)

  1. Weird, uncanny.
    • My point is that there is no grand single line, everything is in bits, & often absolutely dead, & always very unheimlich, almost macabre.1936, Isiah Berlin, letter, 3 Jun 1936
    • Werfner, damn him, keen-witted but unheimlich, is obsessed with railway lines2006, Thomas Pynchon, Against the Day, Vintage, published 2007, page 272

Forms of unheimlich

comparativemore unheimlich
superlativemost unheimlich

Origin of unheimlich

Borrowed from German unheimlich (“unfamiliar”). Piecewise doublet of unhomely.

Questions about unheimlich

What does unheimlich mean?
Unheimlich means weird, uncanny.
What part of speech is unheimlich?
Unheimlich is an adjective.
How do you pronounce unheimlich?
Unheimlich is pronounced /ʊnˈhaɪmlɪx/.

Words near unheimlich in the dictionary

  1. unheeled
  2. unhefted
  3. unhefty
  4. unhegemonic
  5. unheightened
  6. unheimlich
  7. unheinous
  8. unheired
  9. unheld
  10. unhele
  11. unheled

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: unheimlich (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.

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Cite this entry: “unheimlich.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/unheimlich. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.