19sep2009

Eldritch

\EL-drich\ , adjective:

1.Strange; unearthly; weird; eerie.

Quotes:

In the eldritch light of evening in Nevada's Black Rock Desert, the eye plays tricks on the brain.

-- Thom Stark, "Something's Burning", Boardwatch, November 2000

The immitigable mountains and their stark, eldritch trees; coasts where earth abruptly snapped off, never to be continued, or beaches which gnawed it to bright dust and sucked it gently away. . . .

-- Carolyn Kizer, "A Childhood South of Nowhere", New York Times, April 9, 1989

Origin:

Eldritch perhaps derives from a Middle English word meaning "fairyland," from Middle English elf, "elf" (from Old English aelf) + riche, "kingdom" (from Old English rice).