weird
[weerd]
- involving or suggesting the supernatural; unearthly or uncanny: a weird sound; weird lights.
- fantastic; bizarre: a weird getup.
- Archaic. concerned with or controlling fate or destiny.
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- fate; destiny.
- fate(def 6).
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Origin of weird
before 900; (noun) Middle English (northern form of wird), Old English wyrd; akin to worth2; (adj.) Middle English, orig. attributive noun in phrase werde sisters the Fates (popularized as appellation of the witches in Macbeth)
Synonyms
See more synonyms for on Thesaurus.com1. unnatural, preternatural. weird, eerie, unearthly, uncanny refer to that which is mysterious and apparently outside natural law. Weird refers to that which is suggestive of the fateful intervention of supernatural influences in human affairs: the weird adventures of a group lost in the jungle. Eerie refers to that which, by suggesting the ghostly, makes one's flesh creep: an eerie moaning from a deserted house. Unearthly refers to that which seems by its nature to belong to another world: an unearthly light that preceded the storm. Uncanny refers to that which is mysterious because of its apparent defiance of the laws established by experience: an uncanny ability to recall numbers.
Antonyms
1. natural.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Related Words
outlandishhauntinghorrificeeriespookymagicalcreepykookymysteriousfunkystrangesupernaturalghastlyeccentricawfulcuriousunnaturalfreakypeculiaroccultExamples from the Web for weirder
Contemporary Examples
I like his weirder, more ambitious novels even when they go off the rails.
Which makes it all the weirder that Hamm has appeared in exactly one blockbuster to date.
It happened in the middle of the night, which made it weirder—and more thrilling.
Sad to say, as this Paterson story gets weirder and weirder, it becomes less and less fun.
Black Friday: bigger, weirder, and seemingly more vital to our economy than ever before.
Historical Examples
The watch may be weird, but no weirder than that of a previous night.
The Forsaken InnAnna Katharine Green
And, after all, is it weirder than the common traditional method?
Your United StatesArnold Bennett
The old witch-hanging city had no weirder product than this dark-haired son.
Literary and Social EssaysGeorge William Curtis
One would have to go far to find a wilder, weirder, and more grimly suggestive spot.
Scottish Ghost StoriesElliott O'Donnell
A subtler, a weirder, a more awful horror is thus added to the dread of communion with the supernatural.
The Science of Fairy TalesEdwin Sidney Hartland
weird
- suggestive of or relating to the supernatural; eerie
- strange or bizarre
- archaic of or relating to fate or the Fates
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- archaic, mainly Scot
- fate or destiny
- one of the Fates
- dree one's weird Scot See dree
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- (tr) Scot to destine or ordain by fate; predict
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See also weird out
Word Origin
Old English (ge) wyrd destiny; related to weorthan to become, Old Norse urthr bane, Old Saxon wurd; see worth ²
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
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Word Origin and History for weirder
weird
Old English wyrd (n.) "fate, destiny," literally "that which comes," from Proto-Germanic *wurthis (cf. Old Saxon wurd, Old High German wurt "fate," Old Norse urðr "fate, one of the three Norns"), from PIE *wert- "to turn, wind," (cf. German werden, Old English weorðan "to become"), from root *wer- (3) "to turn, bend" (see versus). For sense development from "turning" to "becoming," cf. phrase turn into "become."
The modern sense of weird developed from Middle English use of weird sisters for the three fates or Norns (in Germanic mythology), the goddesses who controlled human destiny. They were portrayed as odd or frightening in appearance, as in "Macbeth," which led to the adjectival meaning "odd-looking, uncanny," first recorded 1815.
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper