weirdo
Americannoun
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weirdos
plural
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an odd, eccentric, or unconventional person.
-
a psychopath, especially a dangerous or vicious one; psycho.
They caught the weirdo who attacked the children.
noun
Usage
What does weirdo mean? A weirdo is a person who behaves in ways that are considered odd or unconventional. Weirdo is based on the adjective weird, which most commonly means strange, odd, peculiar, or bizarre. Weirdo is very informal. It can be used both negatively as an insult and positively as a compliment, depending on how you feel about someone else’s weird behavior. Much less commonly, weirdo can be used as an informal term for a person considered a dangerous psychopath. Example: My dog keeps licking the wall—what a weirdo!
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of weirdo
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.
See Examples For:
If you are a weirdo, then you want the iPhone Air.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 10, 2026
I was excited to go where nobody thought I was a weirdo.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 19, 2026
Handel bids us “Rejoice Greatly”; we do so with the benefit of a weirdo 19th century Frenchman, one Gérard de Nerval.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 11, 2026
I’m a weirdo and I like to work.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 17, 2026
“They aren’t mean to me, but they probably think the same thing. That I’m a weirdo who doesn’t have any friends. I mean, they’d be right.”
From "Sparrow" by Sarah Moon
"You do get weirdos who are in it for the complete wrong reasons," she said.
From BBC ● Jun. 7, 2026
The military swarms in to build a metal wall around the titanic alien, and Blunt’s cozy community of 700 swells to more than 100,000: scientists, journalists, tourists, opportunists and the inevitable grifters, criminals and weirdos.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 30, 2026
The other benefit of being obsessed with the Christmas singles was that it helped you find the other weirdos.
From Salon ● Dec. 23, 2025
Instead, the plaintiffs sometimes came across as a rogue’s gallery of weirdos, abusers, and fortune seekers.
From Slate ● Sep. 5, 2025
When Danny Donato told me my parents were weirdos, she screamed at him until Mrs. Abbott had to literally pull her out of the room.
From "P.S. I Miss You" by Jen Petro-Roy
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.
