/ˈwɪə(ɹ)d/, /ˈwiːə(ɹ)d/, /ˈwiɚd/
OriginFrom Middle English werde, wierde, wirde, wyrede, wurde, from Old English wyrd (“fate”), from Proto-West Germanic *wurdi, from Proto-Germanic *wurdiz, from Proto-Indo-European *wert- (“to turn, wind”). Cognate with Icelandic urður (“fate”). Related to Old English weorþan (“to become”). Doublet of wyrd. More at worth.
Obsolete by the 16th century in English, but reintroduced from Middle Scots weird, whence Shakespeare borrowed it in naming the Weird Sisters (originally Weyward Sisters, the Three Witches), reintroducing it to English. The senses “abnormal”, “strange” etc. arose via reinterpretation of Weird Sisters and date from after this reintroduction.
- Having an unusually strange character or behaviour.
“There are lots of weird people in this place.”
- Deviating from the normal; bizarre.
“It was quite weird to bump into all my ex-girlfriends on the same day.”
“It was weird for him to watch boys play with Barbie dolls.”
“The best recent VC discs start from the relentlessness of gabber and digital hardcore, and yank it in a weirder direction.”
- Relating to weird fiction ("a macabre subgenre of speculative fiction").
“a weird story”
“In his introduction to the 1955 volume, [Ray] Bradbury singles out these stories as oddities in his canon — he wrote this kind of tale before his twenty-sixth birthday (1946), and rarely since. They a”
- archaicOf or pertaining to the Fates.
- archaicConnected with fate or destiny; able to influence fate.
- archaicOf or pertaining to witches or witchcraft; supernatural; unearthly; suggestive of witches, witchcraft, or unearthliness; wild; uncanny.
“Whiles I ſtood rapt in the wonder of it, came Miſſiues from the King, who all-hail'd me Thane of Cawdor, by which Title before, these weyward Sisters saluted me, and referr'd me to the comming on of t”
“Those sweet, low tones, that seemed like a weird incantation.”
“It may be in that dark hour at the burn-foot, before the spate caught her, she had been given grace to resist her adversary and fling herself upon God's mercy. And it would seem that it had been grant”
- archaicHaving supernatural or preternatural power.
“There was a weird light shining above the hill.”
- abbreviation, acronym, alt-of, not-comparableAcronym of Western, educated, industrialized, rich and democratic.
“WEIRD societies”
“Our examination of the representativeness of WEIRD subjects is necessarily restricted to the rather limited database currently available.”
“Perhaps one of the more striking distinctions between WEIRD societies and non-WEIRD societies (what Henrich, Heine, and Norenzayan call small-scale societies in their paper) is a distinction in visual”
- archaicFate; destiny; luck.
“Step by reluctant step, he had come to know his weird. The North must be saved from her.”
“In the weird of death shall the hapless be whelmed, and from Doom’s dark prison
Shall she steal forth never again.”
- A prediction.
- Scotland, obsoleteA spell or charm.
“Thou shalt bear thy penance lone, / In the Valley of Saint John, / And this weird shall overtake thee;— / Sleep, until a knight shall wake thee, / For feat of arms as far renowned / As warrior of the ”
- That which comes to pass; a fact.
- archaic, in-pluralThe Fates.
- informalWeirdness.
“You know why it feels so good to be amongst real friends? They allow you to be your weird and love you for it. Imagine how it would feel to freely let your weird out and have the world love you for it”
- transitiveTo destine; doom; change by witchcraft or sorcery.
- transitiveTo warn solemnly; adjure.
- nonstandard, not-comparableIn a strange manner.
“I waltzed into that club just as straight as a goose and I kept tripping over things and people were looking at me weird.”
“Man, you're talking weird!”
Formsweirder(comparative) · weirdest(superlative) · weïrd(alternative, obsolete) · wierd(alternative, obsolete) · weyard(alternative) · weyward(alternative) · weirds(plural) · weirds(present, singular, third-person) · weirding(participle, present) · weirded(participle, past) · weirded(past)