weir

UK/wɪə̯//wɪɹ/

weir noun: an adjustable dam placed across a river to regulate the flow of water downstream.

Image: Jonathan Thacker, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

weir (countable and uncountable, plural weirs)

(countable) An adjustable dam placed across a river to regulate the flow of water downstream.
- Though Hambleden's parish register records the death, in 1753, of a bargeman 'Kill'd by accident, shooting ye lock', the turbulent waters of Mill End weir on the River Thames, about a mile from the village, still attract canoeists.1980, AA Book of British Villages, Drive Publications Ltd, page 214, photo caption
- The weir must not represent a physical barrier to fish migration, both locally and throughout the whole river system. If necessary, a fishway is included in the weir.1997, J. H. L'Abée-Lund, J. E. Brittain, “Weir construction as environmental mitigation in Norwegian hydropower schemes”, in Hydropower '97, pages 51–54
(countable) A fence placed across a river to catch fish.
- The Taff is naturally a good salmon river, the Ely a sea trout river, but what with weirs and pollusions the fish have been pretty well exterminated.1879, Annual Report of the Inspectors of Salmon Fisheries, page 65
- The weir catch of mackerel at Monomoy and along Cape Cod has been a failure.1887, W. A. Wilcox, “58-New England Fisheries in May, 1886”, in Bulletin of the United States Fish Commission, volume VI, published 1886, page 191
(obsolete) Seaweed.

Verb

weir (third-person singular simple present weirs, present participle weiring, simple past and past participle weired)

To put a weir, or weirs (in a river)

Proper noun capitalized: Weir

Weir (countable and uncountable, plural Weirs)

(countable) A surname.
A village in Rossendale borough, Lancashire, England, United Kingdom (OS grid ref SD8725).
A town and municipality in Bharatpur District, Rajasthan, India.
An unincorporated village in Montcalm, Les Laurentides Regional County Municipality, Quebec, Canada.
A minor city in Cherokee County, Kansas.
An unincorporated community in Muhlenberg County, Kentucky.
A town in Choctaw County, Mississippi.
A minor city in Williamson County, Texas.
An unincorporated community in Kanawha County, West Virginia.

weir meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Telugu

weir in Tamil

கலிங்கல், கலுங்கு, சிற்றணை, சிற்றிணை, நிறை நீர் வழி மதகு, மடை

weir in Telugu

వెయిర్

More languagesFewer languages

weir in Malayalam: അണ
weir in Kannada: ಒಡ್ಡು, ಅಣೆಕಟ್ಟು, ಅಡ್ಡಕಟ್ಟೆ, ಕೋಡಿ
weir in Gujarati: આડબંધ āḍabandh
weir in Odia: ୱେଯ଼ାର, ୱିର୍
weir in Arabic: هَدَّار haddār
weir in Persian: ورغ varġ
weir in Thai: ฝาย fǎai
weir in Vietnamese: đăng

Examples of weir in a sentence

A walkway over the weir is likely to be useful for the removal of floating debris trapped by the weir, or for working staunches and sluices on it as the rate of flow changes.2010, Sathesh Gopi, Basic Civil Engineering, page 303:
Then there came a reg'lar terror of a sou'wester same as you don't get one summer in a thousand, and blowed the shanty flat and ripped about half of the weir poles out of the sand.1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter I, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC:

All 10 example sentences with weir

Forms of weir

Noun
plural	weirs
alternative form (dated)	wear
alternative form (archaic)	wier
alternative form (obsolete)	wyer
Verb
third-person singular present	weirs
present participle	weiring
past participle	weired
past	weired
Proper noun
plural	Weirs

Plural of weir: weirs

Origin of weir

From Middle English were, from Old English wer, from werian (“to dam up”), from Proto-West Germanic *warjan, from Proto-Germanic *warjaną, from Proto-Indo-European *wer- (“to cover”); Cognate with Old Norse ver (“station for fishing”), Sanskrit वृणोति (vṛṇóti). Related to warranty.

* As an English and Scottish surname, from the noun weir. Compare Wear, Ware. * Sometimes also a French surname, perhaps a version of Norman de la Were (“of the war”), see Warr. There is also the placename Wierre-au-Bois in Pas-de-Calais. * As an Irish surname, shortened and Anglicized from Mac an Mhaoir (“son of the steward”), see McNair. Also sometimes Anglicized from erroneous translations of names such as Ó Corra, Ó Comhraidhe, see Corr and Curry.

Words formed from weir

Phrases with weir

Goulburn Weir

Words that rhyme with weir

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about weir

What does weir mean?: Weir means an adjustable dam placed across a river to regulate the flow of water downstream.
What is weir in Hindi?: Weir in Hindi is वीयर. See Weir meaning in Hindi.
How do you use weir in a sentence?: A walkway over the weir is likely to be useful for the removal of floating debris trapped by the weir, or for working staunches and sluices on it as the rate of flow changes.
What part of speech is weir?: Weir can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce weir?: Weir is pronounced /wɪə̯/ (UK).
What is the plural of weir?: The plural of weir is weirs.

Words near weir in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: weir (page history and authors); Weir (page history and authors); weir (Hindi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); weir (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); weir (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); weir (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); weir (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); weir (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); weir (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-weir.ogg, en-us-Weir.oga.

Cite this entry: “weir.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/weir. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.