spooky slang word

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This Halloween: What Does It Mean To Call Something 'Spooky'?

Leah Donnella

A runner passes a ghostly sculpture on display between Bondi Beach and Tamarama Beach in Sydney. Peter Parks/AFP/Getty Images hide caption

A runner passes a ghostly sculpture on display between Bondi Beach and Tamarama Beach in Sydney.

So, you're at your friend's elaborately decorated Halloween party. There are cobwebs hanging from the ceiling, bloody handprints on the wall, a frothing potion brewing on the stove. It's creepy! And scary! But is it ... spooky?

Sure, "spook" can refer to a ghost. It can refer to a spy. But as many of us know, it's also, sometimes, a racial slur for black people. One of our Ask Code Switch readers wrote in to ask about the etiquette of using words like spook and spooky.

During this, the season of murder mysteries and haunted hayrides, is it insensitive to say that you were spooked?

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So here's the deal: Spook comes from the Dutch word for apparition, or specter. The noun was first used in English around the turn of the nineteenth century. Over the next few decades, it developed other forms, like spooky, spookish, and of course, the verb, to spook.

From there, it seems, the word lived a relatively innocuous life for many years, existing in the liminal space between surprise and mild fear.

It wasn't until World War II that spook started to refer to black people . The black Army pilots who trained at the Tuskegee Institute were referred to as the "Spookwaffe" — waffe being the German word for weapon, or gun. (Luftwaffe was the name of the German air force).

Once the word "spook" was linked to blackness, it wasn't long before it became a recognizable — if second-tier — slur.

But that wasn't the end of the story for spook. The word had a bit of a renaissance in the 1970s, with the release of the novel and classic film, The Spook Who Sat By The Door , by Sam Greenlee .

Both the book and movie tell the fictional story of the first black man recruited and trained by the CIA. That man goes through his training, works for a little while, and then quits his job and moves back to Chicago, where he secretly trains a group of young black "freedom fighters."

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The title of the movie, of course, both refers to spook meaning "black person" and spook meaning "spy." And as a satirical piece of literature written by an African-American author in the years following the civil rights movement, the use of "spook" was infused with an extra dose of irony.

Renee Blake is a sociolinguist who studies the way language is used in society, "whether it's based on race, class, gender or the like." She says she doesn't hear the word spook all that often, but she does have two salient reference points for it.

The first is The Spook Who Sat By The Door , and the second is the 2000 book and 2003 movie The Human Stain, by Phillip Roth. His novel tells the story of a professor at a New England college who is forced to resign after he calls two African-American students spooks.

The word spook hasn't just gotten fictional people in trouble. In 2010, Target apologized for selling a Halloween toy called "Spook Drop Parachuters" — literally miniature black figurines with orange parachutes.

In light of all this baggage, I asked Blake what she thought about the use of words like spook and spooky during Halloween. She said that, while it's clear that spook has multiple, distinct meanings, it's still important to think about context.

The way that certain words get attached to particular racial groups is incredibly complicated. ( Take thug , for example .)

"Be thoughtful about the fact that [spook] now might have the connotation of referring to a black person in a disparaging way," Blake says. "If someone says, 'Did you get spooked?' and there are no black people there, then, OK, you mean 'Did you get scared or frightened?' That's fine, I get it."

But once you insert black people into the situation, Blake says, it's important to be more tactful. "We know that the word 'niggardly' doesn't mean a black person, but let's be sensitive. Are you going to use the word niggardly in front of a group of young students in a classroom? No."

So, this Halloween, be a little cautious when it comes to describing your surroundings. And don't be afraid of creeping into the thesaurus for a spooky synonym.

To me, it's more fun to be aghast, bloodcurdled, or spine-chilled than "spooked."

Got a race question for Code Switch? Ask us here .

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like or befitting a spook or ghost; suggestive of spooks .

eerie; scary.

(especially of horses) nervous; skittish.

Origin of spooky

Other words from spooky.

• spook·i·ly, adverb
• spook·i·ness, noun

Words Nearby spooky

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

How to use spooky in a sentence

It’s always interesting and well-directed, even when we’re fed horror cliches galore, from spooky dollhouses to things lurking in the basement.

Thanks to campfire tales and multimillion-dollar horror flicks, spooky notions can infiltrate our subconscious even without any real-life supernatural encounters.

In fact, “investors may be convinced that Halloween was purposely placed in October because the market’s actions can be so spooky ,” CFRA’s Sam Stovall wrote in a recent note.

So much so that CFRA’s Stovall quips, “Investors may be convinced that Halloween was purposely placed in October because the market’s actions can be so spooky .”

For example, key to the quantum internet is entanglement — that “ spooky action at a distance” in which particles are linked across time and space, and measuring the properties of one particle instantly reveals the other’s properties.

Warne looked—in the words of the Daily Mail—“like a spooky waxwork.”

spooky Tooth had reformed quite a while before I received the call and were touring quite often.

When we all saw this, both my brothers turned to look at me in the car and pulled ‘ spooky ’ faces at me.

“As much as I love sunny meadows and bunnies, I also love spooky forests with owls,” she says.

Formerly a playground for Sunday school kids, it has a spooky , cloistered feel to it.

I don't believe there is anything spooky about that building.

"I hate to go through the grove, it's so spooky ," she said, as they hurried along.

And again the ghostly hoot of the owl made the little patch of woods seem more spooky and lonesome.

A lonely owl answered with a dismal shriek from a distant tree, making the night seem still more spooky .

Those were gnomes—the real spooky , spinky kind that give you the shivers up and down your back when they're out gnoming.

British Dictionary definitions for spooky

/ ( ˈspuːkɪ ) /

ghostly or eerie : a spooky house

resembling or appropriate to a ghost

US easily frightened; highly strung

Derived forms of spooky

• spookily , adverb
• spookiness , noun

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

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Meaning of spooky in English

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• awesomeness
• bloodcurdling
• frightening
• frighteningly
• intimidating
• intimidatingly
• scarifyingly
• terrifyingly
• traumatically
• white-knuckle

Translations of spooky

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spell trouble

to suggest that there may be problems in the future

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Definition of 'spooky'

spooky in British English

Spooky in american english, examples of 'spooky' in a sentence spooky, trends of spooky.

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Synonyms of spooky

• as in excitable
• as in eerie
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Thesaurus Definition of spooky

Synonyms & Similar Words

• hyperkinetic
• hyperactive
• hyperexcitable
• high - strung
• fiddle - footed
• melodramatic
• hot - blooded
• temperamental
• hypersensitive
• emotionalistic
• perturbable
• flibbertigibbety

Antonyms & Near Antonyms

• imperturbable
• unflappable
• unexcitable
• laid - back
• supernatural
• metaphysical
• enigmatical
• inscrutable
• preternatural
• unaccustomed
• commonplace
• unremarkable
• unexceptional
• predictable

Articles Related to spooky

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Thesaurus Entries Near spooky

Cite this entry.

“Spooky.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus , Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/spooky. Accessed 19 Oct. 2023.

More from Merriam-Webster on spooky

Nglish: Translation of spooky for Spanish Speakers

Britannica English: Translation of spooky for Arabic Speakers

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synonyms for spooky

• supernatural
• spine-chilling

See also synonyms for: spookiest

antonyms for spooky

Most relevant

• unfrightening

Roget's 21st Century Thesaurus, Third Edition Copyright © 2013 by the Philip Lief Group.

How to use spooky in a sentence

It’s always interesting and well-directed, even when we’re fed horror cliches galore, from spooky dollhouses to things lurking in the basement.

Thanks to campfire tales and multimillion-dollar horror flicks, spooky notions can infiltrate our subconscious even without any real-life supernatural encounters.

In fact, “investors may be convinced that Halloween was purposely placed in October because the market’s actions can be so spooky ,” CFRA’s Sam Stovall wrote in a recent note.

So much so that CFRA’s Stovall quips, “Investors may be convinced that Halloween was purposely placed in October because the market’s actions can be so spooky .”

For example, key to the quantum internet is entanglement — that “ spooky action at a distance” in which particles are linked across time and space, and measuring the properties of one particle instantly reveals the other’s properties.

Warne looked—in the words of the Daily Mail—“like a spooky waxwork.”

spooky Tooth had reformed quite a while before I received the call and were touring quite often.

When we all saw this, both my brothers turned to look at me in the car and pulled ‘ spooky ’ faces at me.

“As much as I love sunny meadows and bunnies, I also love spooky forests with owls,” she says.

Formerly a playground for Sunday school kids, it has a spooky , cloistered feel to it.

I don't believe there is anything spooky about that building.

"I hate to go through the grove, it's so spooky ," she said, as they hurried along.

And again the ghostly hoot of the owl made the little patch of woods seem more spooky and lonesome.

A lonely owl answered with a dismal shriek from a distant tree, making the night seem still more spooky .

Those were gnomes—the real spooky , spinky kind that give you the shivers up and down your back when they're out gnoming.

Choose the synonym for lug

Words Related To spooky

• distressing
• shuddersome
• apprehensive
• high-strung
• nervous wreck
• on pins and needles
• up the wall

frightful/frightening

• disquieting
• hair-raising
• inconceivable
• intimidating
• unspeakable
• frightening
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