weird
Americanadjective
-
weirder,
comparative
-
weirdest
superlative
-
Wow, that’s a weird getup.
I value our friendship, and I’m afraid if we start dating, it’ll get weird between us.
-
Informal. not functioning properly or as expected; unstable; broken.
My connection is weird so I can’t tell if they’re getting my messages or not.
The car is great except for a weird compressor that doesn't work when you run the AC at a red light.
-
involving or suggesting the supernatural; unearthly or uncanny.
a weird sound;
weird lights.
- Antonyms:
- unexceptional, ordinary, normal
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Archaic. concerned with or controlling fate or destiny.
verb phrase
adjective
-
suggestive of or relating to the supernatural; eerie
-
strange or bizarre
-
archaic of or relating to fate or the Fates
noun
-
archaic
-
fate or destiny
-
one of the Fates
-
-
See dree
verb
Usage
Spelling tips for weird The word weird is hard to spell because the i goes before the e in many common words, like believe or chief, but weird doesn't follow this rule. How to spell weird: To spell weird, remember that weird is weird; it doesn't follow the classic "I before E except after C" rule. Another way to remember the order of i and e in weird is that it looks weird if you spell it wierd.
Synonym Usage
weird, eerie, unearthly, uncanny refer to that which is mysterious and apparently outside natural law. Weird can refer 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. See bizarre.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Adjectives
Etymology
Origin of weird
First recorded before 900; Middle English noun werd, wered, wird (northern form), Old English wyrd, weord; akin to worth 2; Middle English adjective originally attributive noun in phrase werde sisters “the Fates” (popularized as appellation of the witches in Macbeth )
Explanation
Call something weird when it’s strange, bizarre, or strikes you as odd. Putting peanut butter on pizza is weird. So is most abstract, conceptual performance art. Our definition of weird is rooted in Germanic mythology, where the “weird sisters” were three funky-looking goddesses that controlled fate and destiny: We dropped the idea of destiny and clung to how weird the weird sisters looked. In today’s slang we even use weird as a verb, as in “to weird someone out” or make them feel uneasy.
Vocabulary lists containing weird
"Macbeth" Vocabulary from Act I
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Uncanny, Creepy, or Downright Scary: Words For Halloween
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Beowulf vocabulary
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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:
“What’s weird is you have these insane growth numbers.”
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 25, 2026
He describes its unusual arrangement as "super weird" compared with our own Solar System.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 25, 2026
“It’s too weird — and that’s fine,” she says.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 22, 2026
Mr. Gershkovich instead finds himself trapped in a weird legal limbo.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 22, 2026
He likes the parts of her that everyone else thinks are weird.
From "A Boy Called Bat" by Elana K. Arnold
“Everything we do that’s perceived as absurd always starts from a real place of: ‘Something like this exists, and we’re going to expand upon it and go deeper and weirder with it.’
From Slate ● Jul. 12, 2026
Before a 2023 writers strike that knocked late-night shows off the air for five months, the Covid-19 pandemic of 2020 was a longer, weirder disruption for Colbert and his staff.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 21, 2026
Adora is also in possession of “one of the weirder jobs”: a fellowship from the partially paralyzed, mind-bogglingly rich descendant of a steel baron to provide moral training to his spoiled, acquisitive preteen twin sons.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 17, 2026
“Because I feel like I know everybody so well, and I’ve known them for such a long time that ... it’s weirder to act like it’s weird,” Scobell told People earlier this year.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 13, 2026
Even weirder, her hands and arms up to her elbows were covered by bright yellow rubber gloves—the kind my mom used to wear when she scrubbed the bathroom or did the dishes.
From "The Darkest Minds" by Alexandra Bracken
The somewhat unexpected money has given them permission to act on their “biggest, craziest, weirdest dreams,” said Novack, 35, who was most recently a senior category manager at Impossible Foods.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 17, 2026
He said the weirdest conspiracy theory he’d heard in the wake of the shooting was that he’s a government plant.
From Slate ● Aug. 20, 2026
The weirdest thing is that Marx is the Republican nominee for governor of Colorado, an actual part of these United States.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 19, 2026
Swifties and their ideological opposites have both been Monday-morning quarterbacking last weekend’s shindig, accepting even the weirdest bad-faith gossip without question.
From Salon ● Jul. 9, 2026
Mama and I are often at loggerheads about the weirdest things, like how people in villages lived a hundred years ago.
From "A Place at the Table" by Saadia Faruqi and Laura Shovan
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
