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The Collaborative International Dictionary
Eldritch

Eldritch \El"dritch\, a. Hideous; ghastly; as, an eldritch shriek or laugh. [Local, Eng.]

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
eldritch

"hideous, ghastly, weird," c.1500, of uncertain origin; apparently somehow from elf (compare Scottish variant elphrish), an explanation OED finds "suitable;" Watkins connects its elements with Old English el- "else, otherwise" and rice "realm."

Wiktionary
eldritch

a. unearthly, supernatural, eerie.

WordNet
eldritch

adj. suggesting the operation of supernatural influences; "an eldritch screech"; "the three weird sisters"; "stumps...had uncanny shapes as of monstrous creatures"- John Galsworthy; "an unearthly light"; "he could hear the unearthly scream of some curlew piercing the din"- Henry Kingsley [syn: weird, uncanny, unearthly]

Wikipedia
Eldritch

Eldritch is an Old English derived word used to describe that which is otherworldly, often by being weird, ghostly, or uncanny. The Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue also associates the word with elven things, but that connection has been shown to be a misuse or appropriation. The word was often used in Scottish poetry and literature from the 1600s. In the 1900s, the word became more widely used in English after gaining popularity in books by H. P. Lovecraft and C. S. Lewis.

Eldritch (band)

Eldritch is a progressive/power metal band formed in 1991 in Italy. Their history began when Eugene Simone, Adriano Dal Canto, and Terence Holler formed a band with the intent of putting out some demos. Right after the lineup was complete and the demos started to spread over the scene, the interest towards the band began to grow until Limp Schoor, in 1993 accepted to be their manager.

In 1995 the band put out the debut album Seeds of Rage for Inside Out Music label. The album had good success, winning an award as Album of the Month on the German magazine Heavy, oder was!?. Two years later, in 1997, the band proceeded to follow the same flow in terms of musical ideals, to the point where they published Headquake, having success again, and at the time the Organization of the Gods of Metal Festival was convinced to include them in the bill.

1998 was the year of a change in style. With the publishing of El Nino the band followed influences such as Metallica, Coroner, and Annihilator. The crowd and the media appreciated very much their change as their albums selling grew and a successful tour with Threshold and Pain Of Salvation came. 1998 is even the year of a lineup change.

With the new lineup the band had to face many difficulties, and within 3 years, in 2001 they published Reverse, an album which marked a new turn to the band's style and composition ideas. they approached more complex riffs, with the influence of bands such as Machine Head and Pantera. That year they participated again to the Gods Of Metal Festival.

The following album was published 3 years after. After changing lineup again, they changed label too this time, signing with Limb Music Products, and Portrait of the Abyss Within was put out in 2004.

In 2006 Eldritch had a new turn. With the publishing of Neighbourhell the band defined their own distinctive style which was very much appreciated by the specialized media.

After putting out the album Blackenday, the Leghorn band intent was to work on another album, which, as they declare, it will be even more complex and technically challenging than their previous albums.

Eldritch (disambiguation)

Eldritch is an Old English word used to describe something as otherworldly, weird, ghostly, or uncanny.

Eldritch may also refer to:

  • Andrew Eldritch (born 1959), frontman, singer, songwriter and the only remaining original member of The Sisters of Mercy
  • Eldritch (band), an Italian heavy metal band
  • Eldritch Wizardry, a Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game supplement
  • Eldritch (video game), a video game for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux based on the Cthulhu Mythos
  • Eldritch Moon, an expansion from the Magic the Gathering card game
Eldritch (video game)

Eldritch is a 2013 first person shooter video game developed by David Pittman and published by Minor Key Games. It was inspired by the writings of H. P. Lovecraft and gameplay elements of roguelike games. The expansion Eldritch: Mountains of Madness was released in December 2013. The game's source code was released in 2014, though the content itself remains proprietary. Metacritic rated the game 77/100, and GameRankings rated it 75%.

Usage examples of "eldritch".

Excited by the proximity of other eldritch steeds, the nygel caracoled, curvetted.

I overcame the worst that the ancient, amorphous, deathless, eldritch, gibbering gods of Elsewhere and Elsewhen threw at me.

Conceivably, some enchantment in the chant of crystal, some oblique spell zinging off the obliques, something occult in the dark occlusions had laid hands upon his eldritch senses and dulled them, lulled them, culled them, gulled them.

Sometimes he would take walks through shadowy tangles of unpaved musty-smelling lanes where eldritch brown houses of unknown age leaned and tottered and leered mockingly through narrow, small-paned windows.

Night would soon fall, and it was then that the mountainous blasphemy lumbered upon its eldritch course.

Alexander seemed in an eldritch state, uncaring of danger, seemingly comfortable even within this sudden blizzard.

Those who step on one of those eldritch turves lose their way, even if they have traveled that very path a hundred times before.

In the eldritch light, which cast about her an aura that seemed almost supernatural, she looked at me, her eyes adance with wonder.

The scanner glows with blacklight, an eldritch sparkle, as the lock reads her soul-engrams through the hollow of her eye.

And all the while cold fingers of damp vapor clutched and picked at me, and that eldritch, damnable whistling shrieked fiendishly above all the alternations of babel and silence in the whirlpools of darkness around.

Interspersed with the chariots and litters as the procession came down from the Velia were black-robed professional mourners beating their breasts, tearing their hair, emitting eldritch wails and keening dirges.

Created from the lush vegetation and animal fats of the Carboniferous and adjoining periods, holding in itself the black essence of all life that had ever been, constituting in fact a great deep-digged black graveyard of the ultimate eldritch past with blackest ghosts, oil had waited for hundreds of millions of years, dreaming its black dreams, sluggishly pulsing beneath Earth's stony skin, quivering in lightless pools roofed with marsh gas and in top-filled rocky tanks and coursing through myriad channels and through spongy rocky bone, until a being evolved on the surface with whom it could realize and expend itself.

It howled eerily through masts and rigging, blending with a wild and eldritch harmony into the haunting pinging of the Asdic.

He cantered on, joyously—for the smell of the sea came from all sides now, telling of swells like black glass mountains, and the heaving muscles of tidal forces, telling of whipped-cream wind-tickled wave crests, of spray and spume smashed against the sky and cruel currents that mocked humanity, flowing as cold and sensuous as eldritch desire.

Excited by the proximity of other eldritch steeds, the nygel caracoled, curvetted.