It's the Word of the Day podcast for May 10th.
Today's word is uncanny, spelled U-N-C-A-N-N-Y.
Uncanny is an adjective.
It's typically used to describe something that is strange or unusual in a way that is surprising or difficult to understand.
It can also describe something that seems to have a supernatural character or origin.
Here's the word used in a sentence from the post and courier of Charleston, South Carolina.
As Nelson Moultrie walked through the cemetery and observed trees growing in ways that resemble the shapes of people,
like one that bore an uncanny resemblance to a pair of legs,
she said she's already felt the presence of the people buried there.
Uncanny describes that which unsettles us,
such as disquieting observations or mysterious situations and circumstances.
Strip the word of its prefix, though, and you're left with canny,
a word that can be used as a synonym for words like clever and prudent.
While canny and uncanny don't appear to be antonyms, they both come from an early Scottish word,
canny, meaning free from risk, wise, prudent, cautious.
And in Scots, canny has for centuries had a secondary meaning,
more similar to that of its mysterious cousin.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines a sense of the word used chiefly in negative constructions,
as in not canny, to describe what is not safe to be involved with,
or more broadly, what is not in accordance with what is right or natural,