weird

Meanings

1. 1
   adj

   Strange, unusual, or hard to explain.

   It was quite weird to bump into all my old friends on the same day.

2. 2
   adj

   Strange in a frightening or mysterious way.

   There was a weird light shining above the hill.

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Simplified etymology

Weird comes from Old English wyrd, a noun meaning “fate” or “destiny.” The adjective first meant “having power over destiny” and was associated with the Weird Sisters, originally the Fates and later the witches in Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Its modern meaning “strange or bizarre” dates from the early 19th century.

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”). 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 reinterpretat…

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External links

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• Cambridge Dictionary
• Wiktionary