weird
Part of speech: adj
noun
verb
Morphological type: simple
Etymology: From 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”); more at worth (verb).
Doublet of wyrd, a reborrowing of the original sense and spelling.
Obsolete by the 16th century in English, it was reintroduced by Shakespeare, who borrowed Middle Scots weird as weyward in the name of the Weyward Sisters (later respelt as Weird Sisters), meaning “Sisters of Fate”. The senses “abnormal”, “strange” etc., arising from a reinterpretatation of the Sisters' naming, are posterior to his borrowing.
Inflected forms:
form: weirder
pos: adj
tags: comparative
form: weirdest
pos: adj
tags: superlative
form: weïrd
pos: adj
tags: alternative
obsolete
form: wierd
pos: adj
tags: alternative
obsolete
form: weyard
pos: adj
tags: alternative
form: weyward
pos: adj
tags: alternative
form: weirds
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: weïrd
pos: noun
tags: alternative
obsolete
form: wierd
pos: noun
tags: alternative
obsolete
form: weyard
pos: noun
tags: alternative
form: weyward
pos: noun
tags: alternative
form: weirds
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: weirding
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: weirded
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: weirded
pos: verb
tags: past
form: weïrd
pos: verb
tags: alternative
obsolete
form: wierd
pos: verb
tags: alternative
obsolete
form: weyard
pos: verb
tags: alternative
form: weyward
pos: verb
tags: alternative
Senses:
gloss: Having an unusually strange character or behaviour.
pos: adj
examples: There are lots of weird people in this place.
gloss: Deviating from the normal; bizarre.
pos: adj
examples: 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.
[…] filled with laphet. Fermented tea leaves kneaded with peanut oil, laphet is, hands-down, Myanmar's weirdest and most wonderful contribution to world cuisine.
gloss: Relating to weird fiction ("a macabre subgenre of speculative fiction").
pos: adj
examples: 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 are pure fantasy of the "weird" sort and include some of Bradbury's most striking pieces: "The Scythe" (1943), "The Lake" (1944), "The Jar" (1944), "Skeleton" (1945), and "The Small Assassin" (1946)
gloss: Belonging, pertaining, or related to fate, destiny, or to the Fates; able to influence fate.
pos: adj
examples: 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 time, with haile, King that ſhalt be.
gloss: Related to witches or witchcraft; supernatural; unearthly; suggestive of witches, witchcraft or unearthliness; uncanny; unearthly.
pos: adj
examples: 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 granted; for when he came to the Skerburnfoot, there in the corner sat the weird wife Alison, dead as a stone.
gloss: Having super- or preternatural power.
pos: adj
tags: broadly
examples: Naphtha lamps shed a weird light over a busy scene, for the work was being continued night and day. A score or so of sturdy navvies were shovelling and picking along the track.
gloss: Fate; destiny; luck.
pos: noun
tags: archaic
countable
uncountable
examples: 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.
gloss: A prediction.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
gloss: A spell or charm.
pos: noun
tags: Scotland
countable
obsolete
uncountable
examples: 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 Table Round.
gloss: That which comes to pass; a fact.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
gloss: The Fates.
pos: noun
tags: archaic
countable
in-plural
uncountable
gloss: Weirdness.
pos: noun
tags: colloquial
uncountable
examples: 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.
gloss: To destine; doom; change by witchcraft or sorcery.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
gloss: To warn solemnly; adjure.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
Derived words: one weird trick
weird and wonderful
weird-ass
weirden
weird fiction
weirdie
weirding
weirdist
weird-looking
weirdly
weird matching
weirdness
weird number
weirdo
weird out
weird sister
weirdsome
dree one’s weird
weirdless
Translations: