bizarre
Americanadjective
adjective
Related Words
Bizarre, fantastic, grotesque, weird share a sense of deviation from what is normal or expected. Bizarre means markedly unusual or extraordinarily strange, sometimes whimsically so: bizarre costumes for Mardi Gras; bizarre behavior. Fantastic suggests a wild lack of restraint, a fancifulness so extreme as to lose touch with reality: a fantastic scheme for a series of space cities. In informal use, fantastic often means simply “exceptionally good”: a fantastic meal. Grotesque implies shocking distortion or incongruity, sometimes ludicrous, more often pitiful or tragic: a grotesque mixture of human and animal features; grotesque contrast between the forced smile and sad eyes: a gnarled tree suggesting the figure of a grotesque human being. Weird refers to that which is mysterious and apparently outside natural law, hence supernatural or uncanny: the weird adventures of a group lost in the jungle; a weird and ghostly apparition. Informally, weird means “very strange”: weird and wacky costumes; weird sense of humor.
Pop Culture
— Bizarre: A Canadian sketch comedy television series that aired from 1980–1985 in Canada, and in the U.S. on the cable channel Showtime. —Bizarre Creations: A video game developer, based in Liverpool, England, and known for games like Blur (2010), James Bond 007: Blood Stone (2010), and the Project Gotham Racing series. The name Bizarre Creations came about in 1994 when the then nameless company needed a temporary name and chose “Weird Concepts.” A staff member later used Microsoft Word's Thesaurus on the name, which came up with “Bizarre Creations.” — Mondo Bizarro: A 1966 faux travelogue that mixes often shocking documentary and mockumentary footage. The film is a successor to the 1963 film Mondo Cane, originator of the exploitation documentary genre. — Mondo Bizarro: The name of the twelfth studio album by the New York punk band The Ramones. Released in 1992. — Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern: A television travel show that follows host Andrew Zimmern around the world as he tastes unusual local food. First aired in 2007 on the Travel Channel.
Other Word Forms
- bizarrely adverb
- bizarreness noun
Etymology
Origin of bizarre
First recorded in 1640–50; from French: “strange, odd,” from Italian bizzarro “quick to anger, choleric,” then “capricious,” then “strange, weird”; further origin disputed
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
To be clear, the movie wasn’t what it claimed to be, but a bizarre blend of staged scenes and found footage, which only heightened its notoriety as an unclean object.
From Los Angeles Times
Jewson’s film is thankfully scrubbed of satanic panic, but still focuses on a damsel — or, in this case, damsels — in distress, attempting to escape the bizarre, clandestine ritual they’ve found themselves at the center of.
From Salon
Tudor's departure after only 44 days concludes a bizarre and potentially hugely expensive episode that leaves fingers pointing firmly in the direction of chief executive Vinai Venkatesham and sporting director Johan Lange.
From BBC
When Tommy Lloyd set about building a Final Four-caliber team at Arizona, he laid out a plan so bizarre that it raised eyebrows across the sport.
England's friendly with Uruguay may not have been the most entertaining game, but it was certainly a bizarre and confusing one - for a number of reasons.
From BBC
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
