Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Like a spook or ghost; ghostly.
  • Given over to spooks; congenial to ghosts; haunted: as, a spookish house.
  • Affected by a sense or fear of ghosts; suggestive of the presence or agency of spooks: as, a spookish circumstance; a spookish sensation.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective informal Frightening or unnerving in the manner of something eerie or supernatural; spooky.
  • adjective informal Easily startled, frightened, or unnerved.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

spook +‎ ish

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Examples

  • Why, man, if I were superstitious, it would seem positively spookish.

    The Darrow Enigma Melvin Linwood Severy

  • England has become to the average German mind a real nightmare, a sort of a Frankenstein or any such spookish monster, and as she now, by the vicissitudes of the war, has indeed become the most dangerous of Germany's opponents it is not possible to educate people from the inside to a more rational view of her part in this war and in

    Face to Face with Kaiserism 1909

  • "Then it isn't -- Nothing spookish, uncle Phaeton?" ventured Waldo, in slightly unsteady tones.

    The Lost City 1898

  • The old woman of the hills was an ancient character about whom clung a thousand spookish traditions, but who, in the opinion of John Tuilis, was nothing more than a wise fortune-teller and necromancer who knew every trick in the trade of hoodwinking the superstitious.

    Truxton King A Story of Graustark George Barr McCutcheon 1897

  • Here were the ashes of them, after a thousand years, in contemptible little urns; and they were expected to enjoy, in that much impaired state, sundry rusty bric-a-brac, dolls, and tear-vials of spookish iridescence, until, in the vast lapse of time, even a ghost must have got tired.

    Memories of Hawthorne Rose Hawthorne Lathrop 1888

  • "Then it isn't -- Nothing spookish, uncle Phaeton?" ventured Waldo, in slightly unsteady tones.

    The Lost City 1878

  • His eyes wuz sot an 'fireless,' nd his face wuz spookish white,

    A Little Book of Western Verse Eugene Field 1872

  • Ditto Langley: Friends and family will be interested to hear that you're interested in a spookish job.

    Pink Slip Maureen Rogers 2010

  • Those who like to believe that Mossad, the Israeli secret service, is the epitome of spookish efficiency may find themselves blinking at some of the mishaps and near-disasters that its posse encountered in Argentina.

    - Latest Popular Stories, Instablogs Community 2009

  • Those who like to believe that Mossad, the Israeli secret service, is the epitome of spookish efficiency may find themselves blinking at some of the mishaps and near-disasters that its posse encountered in Argentina.

    - Latest Popular Stories, Instablogs Community 2009

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