a. Forms: 4 eri, hery, 4–6 ery, 6 erie, 9 eirie, -y (Anglo-Irish airy), 8– eery, -ie. [ME. eri, ? var. of erȝ, ARGH; or ? f. that word + -Y.

1

  The word occurs in the northern (not in the midland) version of the Cursor Mundi. It has recently been often used in general literature, but is still regarded as properly Scotch.]

2

  1.  Fearful, timid. In mod. use, expressing the notion of a vague superstitious uneasiness.

3

a. 1300.  Cursor M., 17685 (Gött.). Ioseph be noght eri.

4

c. 1375.  ? Barbour, St. Cosmas & D., 321. & scho … wes for hyme hery.

5

1501.  Douglas, Pal. Hon., Prol. xii. With ery courage. Ibid. (1513), Æneis, VII. iv. 91. He fled … and to his cave hym sped wyth ery spreyt.

6

1572.  Sempill Ballates (1872), 159. We pure sall cry with erie hartis … To the, O God.

7

a. 1774.  Fergusson, Drink Ecl., Poems (1845), 50. They glower eery at a friend’s disgrace.

8

1807–10.  Tannahill, Poems (1846), 98. The watch-dog’s howling … makes the nightly wanderer eerie.

9

1876.  Mrs. Whitney, Sights & Ins., II. ii. 357. Do you feel eerie?

10

1878.  H. M. Stanley, Dark Cont., I. xiv. 353. Yet this eerie feeling and alarm might be causeless.

11

  2.  Fear-inspiring; gloomy, strange, weird.

12

1792.  Burns, Wks. (1800), II. 403. Be thou a bogle by the eerie side of an auld thorn.

13

1795.  H. MacNeill, Waes o’ War, in Poems (1801), 5. Night comes dark and eerie.

14

1828.  J. Wilson, in Blackw. Mag., XXIII. 116. Hae ye walked … fra Bawhannan Lodge, in sic an eerie night.

15

1875.  Miss Braddon, Strange World, II. i. 10. The distant sheep-bell had an eerie sound in the still evening air.

16

  Hence Eerily adv., in an eerie manner; weirdly. Eeriness, an undefined sense of fear; superstitious dread. Eerisome a., weird, gloomy.

17

c. 1375.  Barbour, Bruce, II. 295. Sum man for erynes will trymbill.

18

1724.  Ramsay, Vision, vi. Debar then … All eiryness or feir.

19

1848.  C. Brontë, Jane Eyre, xxxv. It spoke in pain and woe … eerily.

20

1863.  Gd. Words, 522/1.

          A weird unhappy sound! what could it be
That through the wan night wailed so eerily?

21

1839.  De Quincey, Recoll. Lakes, Wks. II. 13. Feeling the sensation of eeriness as twilight came on.

22

1865.  Jrnl. Horticulture, Christm. No. 16/2. From that night I have never known eeriness.

23

1818.  Edin. Mag., Dec., 503 (Jam.). The kye … gied a dowf an’ eerisome crune.

24

1832–53.  Whistle-binkie (Sc. Songs), Ser. III. 49. The objects sae dear … Turn eerisome hame thoughts.

25