Word.ws English Dictionary

there's nowt so queer as folk

there's nowt so queer as folk proverb: nothing is as strange as people can be; people can behave very oddly sometimes.

Proverb

there's nowt so queer as folk

  1. (Yorkshire, colloquial, simile, Lancashire) Nothing is as strange as people can be; people can behave very oddly sometimes.
    • Well (shakes her head with a little smile as she goes on knitting)—there's nowt so queer as folk! (Shakes her head again.)1893, Florence Eveleen Eleanore Bell, Elizabeth Robins, Alan's Wife, act 1, scene 1, pages 11–12
    • 'Theer's Miss So-and-so bin doon here and gaan on ivver so and glen me sic a blackin' as never was, becos I telt her I cudn't git her intil t' auld grund noa-ways, and I telt her she mud just lig in t' new grund and mud be weel content, an aw, for it was a deal sweeter.' 'And,' added old Joe, '...1911, Hardwicke Drummond Rawnsley, “Sexton Joe”, in By Fell and Dale at the English Lakes, pages 87–88

Questions about there's nowt so queer as folk

What does there's nowt so queer as folk mean?
There's nowt so queer as folk means nothing is as strange as people can be; people can behave very oddly sometimes.
What part of speech is there's nowt so queer as folk?
There's nowt so queer as folk is a proverb.

Words near there's nowt so queer as folk in the dictionary

  1. there's no use crying over spilt milk
  2. there's no war in Ba Sing Se
  3. there's no war within the walls
  4. there's none so blind as those who will not see
  5. there's nothing to it
  6. there's nowt so queer as folk
  7. there's one born every minute
  8. there's the rub
  9. there've
  10. there've been
  11. there, there

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: there's nowt so queer as folk (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-there's nowt so queer as folk.ogg.

Cite this entry: “there's nowt so queer as folk.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/there%27s_nowt_so_queer_as_folk. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.