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weird

[weerd]
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adjective, weird·er, weird·est.
  1. involving or suggesting the supernatural; unearthly or uncanny: a weird sound; weird lights.
  2. fantastic; bizarre: a weird getup.
  3. Archaic. concerned with or controlling fate or destiny.
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noun Chiefly Scot.
  1. fate; destiny.
  2. 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)
Related formsweird·ly, adverbweird·ness, noun

Synonyms

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1. 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

peculiarity, quirk, oddity, newness, weirdness, idiosyncrasy, anomaly, flaw, deformity, irregularity, foible, eccentricity, delusion, strangeness, abnormality, novelty, exoticism, unconventionality, foreignness, nonconformity

Examples from the Web for weirdness

Contemporary Examples

Historical Examples

  • I looked round, and a feeling of awe and weirdness crept over me.

    The First Violin

    Jessie Fothergill

  • There wasn't any weirdness about the ship when I woke in the sunlight.

    Romance

    Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer

  • The unexpected wild vehemence and weirdness of it were striking in the extreme.

    Recollections

    David Christie Murray

  • Awe and weirdness followed in the trail of that cannon ball of wind.

    The Riflemen of the Ohio

    Joseph A. Altsheler

  • The changing lights added to the beauty and weirdness of the scene.

British Dictionary definitions for weirdness

weird

adjective
  1. suggestive of or relating to the supernatural; eerie
  2. strange or bizarre
  3. archaic of or relating to fate or the Fates
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noun
  1. archaic, mainly Scot
    1. fate or destiny
    2. one of the Fates
  2. dree one's weird Scot See dree
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verb
  1. (tr) Scot to destine or ordain by fate; predict
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See also weird out
Derived Formsweirdly, adverbweirdness, noun

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 Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Word Origin and History for weirdness

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