Weird
adjectiveStrange, unusual, or hard to explain in a way that seems unsettling.
How to spell weird
5 letters · 1 syllable
How to pronounce weird
What does weird mean?
- adjectiveStrange, unusual, or hard to explain in a way that seems unsettling.
Weird in a sentence
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That sound was a bit weird.
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Something weird is happening in the kitchen.
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It's weird how she always knows the answer.
Where does weird come from?
Language of origin: Germanic
The word comes from the Old English noun wyrd, which meant 'fate' or 'destiny', the course of events laid out for a person. It was built on a Germanic root tied to the verb weorthan, meaning 'to become' or 'to come to pass'. For centuries it was chiefly a noun about destiny, and it survived into Middle English in phrases about the fates. Its modern sense of 'strange' or 'uncanny' grew from the adjective use in 'the Weird Sisters', the three fate-controlling witches in Shakespeare's Macbeth; readers took 'weird' to mean eerie or unnatural rather than fate-related, and that meaning took over by the 1800s. The spelling is the classic trap: it breaks the familiar 'i before e' rhyme, so it is spelled w-e-i-r-d even though the ear expects 'wierd'.
How the word is built
- weird (whole word, from Old English wyrd: fate, destiny)
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