Mysterious, creepy, or scary in a way that suggests ghosts or supernatural things; eerie.
From Dutch 'spookje' (ghost) or related Germanic words. The word entered English in the late 1800s, probably through Dutch-English contact, and combined with '-y' (adjective suffix).
Humans are uniquely drawn to spooky things—horror movies and ghost stories appeal to our threat-detection systems in a safe way, which is why even though spooky scares us, we keep coming back for more.
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