Weirdly

How to spell weirdly

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce weirdly

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does weirdly mean?

1. adverbIn a strange, unexpected, or unsettling way.

Weirdly in a sentence

• The new software behaved weirdly after the update.

• The office felt weirdly quiet during the holiday week.

Where does weirdly come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

The base word weird comes from the Old English noun wyrd, which literally meant 'fate' or 'destiny', the course of events that was thought to be laid out in advance. For centuries it survived mainly in that older sense, and it famously clung on in the title of the 'Weird Sisters', the three fates who appear in Shakespeare's Macbeth and who controlled human destiny. From that supernatural, fate-controlling association the meaning gradually drifted toward 'uncanny' and then to the modern everyday sense of 'strange' or 'odd'. The adverb weirdly simply adds the ordinary -ly suffix to that adjective. The spelling is a notorious trap because it breaks the familiar 'i before e' rhyme: the older wyrd left behind the e-before-i order, so it is weird and weirdly, never wierd or wierdly.

How the word is built

• weird (from Old English wyrd: fate, destiny)
• -ly (adverb suffix)