weird
/ˈwɪə(ɹ)d//ˈwiɚd/
weird adjective: having an unusually strange character or behaviour.
Adjective (1)
weird (comparative weirder, superlative weirdest)
- Having an unusually strange character or behaviour.
- There are lots of weird people in this place.
- Deviating from the normal; bizarre.
- It was quite weird to bump into all my ex-girlfriends on the same day.
- It was weird for him to watch boys play with Barbie dolls.
- Relating to weird fiction ("a macabre subgenre of speculative fiction").
- a weird story
- In his introduction to the 1955 volume, [Ray] Bradbury singles out these stories as oddities in his canon — he wrote this kind of tale before his twenty-sixth birthday (1946), and rarely since. They are pure fantasy of the "weird" sort and include some of Bradbury's most striking pieces: "The...1978, Jeffrey Helterman, Richard Layman, editors, Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 2: American Novelists Since World War II, Detroit, M.A.: Gale Research Company, →ISBN, page 62, column 1
- Belonging, pertaining, or related to fate, destiny, or to the Fates; able to influence fate.
- Whiles I ſtood rapt in the wonder of it, came Miſſiues from the King, who all-hail'd me Thane of Cawdor, by which Title before, these weyward Sisters saluted me, and referr'd me to the comming on of time, with haile, King that ſhalt be.c. 1606 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount...
- Synonyms:
- fateful, foreordained, predestined, bashert, destined, doomed, fated, fatidic, predevote, preordained
- Related to witches or witchcraft; supernatural; unearthly; suggestive of witches, witchcraft or unearthliness; uncanny; unearthly.
- Those sweet, low tones, that seemed like a weird incantation.1847 November 1, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Evangeline, a Tale of Acadie, Boston, Mass.: William D. Ticknor & Company, →OCLC, part I, page 134
- It may be in that dark hour at the burn-foot, before the spate caught her, she had been given grace to resist her adversary and fling herself upon God's mercy. And it would seem that it had been granted; for when he came to the Skerburnfoot, there in the corner sat the weird wife Alison, dead as a...1902, John Buchan, The Outgoing of the Tide
- Synonyms:
- witchish, witchlike, witchly, witchy, magicianlike, magicianly, magiciany, wizardlike, wizardly, wizardy
- Having super- or preternatural power.
- Naphtha lamps shed a weird light over a busy scene, for the work was being continued night and day. A score or so of sturdy navvies were shovelling and picking along the track.1912, Victor Whitechurch, Thrilling Stories of the Railway
Noun
weird (countable and uncountable, plural weirds)
- Fate; destiny; luck.
- Step by reluctant step, he had come to know his weird. The North must be saved from her.1965, Poul Anderson, The Corridors of Time, page 226
- In the weird of death shall the hapless be whelmed, and from Doom’s dark prison
Shall she steal forth never again.1912, Arthur S. Way, transl., Medea, Heinemenn, translation of original by Euripides, published 1946, page 361
- A prediction.
- Synonyms:
- foretale, foretelling, prediction, prognostication
- A spell or charm.
- Thou shalt bear thy penance lone, / In the Valley of Saint John, / And this weird shall overtake thee;— / Sleep, until a knight shall wake thee, / For feat of arms as far renowned / As warrior of the Table Round.1813, [Walter Scott], “Canto Second”, in The Bridal of Triermain, or The Vale of St John. In Three Cantos, Edinburgh: […] James Ballantyne and Co. for John Ballantyne and Co. […]; London: Longman...
- Synonyms:
- enchantment
- That which comes to pass; a fact.
- The Fates.
- Synonyms:
- Norns
- Weirdness.
- You know why it feels so good to be amongst real friends? They allow you to be your weird and love you for it. Imagine how it would feel to freely let your weird out and have the world love you for it.2019, Justin Blackburn, The Bisexual Christian Suburban Failure Enlightening Bipolar Blues, page 33
Verb
weird (third-person singular simple present weirds, present participle weirding, simple past and past participle weirded)
Adverb
weird (not comparable)
- In a strange manner.
- I waltzed into that club just as straight as a goose and I kept tripping over things and people were looking at me weird.1972, Edwin Shrake, Strange Peaches: A Novel
- Man, you're talking weird!1974, Vernard Eller, The Most Revealing Book of the Bible: Making Sense Out of Revelation
Adjective (2) capitalized: WEIRD
WEIRD (not comparable)
- Acronym of Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic.
- WEIRD societies
- Our examination of the representativeness of WEIRD subjects is necessarily restricted to the rather limited database currently available.2009 March 5, Joseph Henrich, Steven J. Heine, Ara Norenzayan, “The Weirdest People in the World”, in University of British Columbia, page 4
weird meaning in Urdu, Tagalog, Arabic and Indonesian
weird in Urdu
- having an unusually strange character or behaviour
- عجیب 'ajīb
- deviating from the normal; bizarre
- عجیب 'ajīb
weird in Tagalog
- having an unusually strange character or behaviour
- kakaiba
weird in Arabic
- having an unusually strange character or behaviour
- عَجِيب ʕajīb, غَرِيب ḡarīb
weird in Indonesian
- having an unusually strange character or behaviour
- aneh
More languagesFewer languages
- weird in Persian
- عجیب 'ajib, عجیب و غریب 'ajib-o-ġarib
- weird in Vietnamese
- kì quặc, kì quái, kì cục, lạ
Examples of weird in a sentence
- The best recent VC discs start from the relentlessness of gabber and digital hardcore, and yank it in a weirder direction.1999, SPIN, volume 15, number 3, page 145:
- Fermented tea leaves kneaded with peanut oil, laphet is, hands-down, Myanmar's weirdest and most wonderful contribution to world cuisine.2002 August, Gourmet, volume 62, numbers 7-12, page 71:
- And it would seem that it had been granted; for when he came to the Skerburnfoot, there in the corner sat the weird wife Alison, dead as a stone.1902, John Buchan, The Outgoing of the Tide:
Synonyms of weird
30 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Forms of weird
| Adjective | |
|---|---|
| comparative | weirder |
| superlative | weirdest |
| alternative form | weyard |
| alternative form | weyward |
| alternative form (obsolete) | weïrd |
| alternative form (obsolete) | wierd |
| Noun | |
| plural | weirds |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | weirds |
| present participle | weirding |
| past participle | weirded |
| past | weirded |
Origin of weird
From Middle English werde, wierde, wirde, wyrede, wurde, from Old English wyrd (“fate”), from Proto-West Germanic *wurdi, from Proto-Germanic *wurdiz, from Proto-Indo-European *wert- (“to turn, wind”). Cognate with Icelandic urður (“fate”). Related to Old English weorþan (“to become”); more at worth (verb). Doublet of wyrd, a reborrowing of the original sense and spelling. Obsolete by the 16th century in English, it was reintroduced by Shakespeare, who borrowed Middle Scots weird as weyward in the name of the Weyward Sisters (later respelt as Weird Sisters), meaning “Sisters of Fate”. The senses “abnormal”, “strange” etc., arising from a reinterpretatation of the Sisters' naming, are posterior to his borrowing.
Coined by American evolutionary biologist Joseph Henrich and collaborators in 2010, referring to a bias among respondents and test subjects in psychology studies. Contrived acronym from weird.
Words formed from weird
Phrases with weird
Words that rhyme with weird
Questions about weird
- What does weird mean?
- Weird means having an unusually strange character or behaviour.
- What is weird in Urdu?
- Weird in Urdu is عجیب ('ajīb). See Weird meaning in Urdu.
- How do you use weird in a sentence?
- The best recent VC discs start from the relentlessness of gabber and digital hardcore, and yank it in a weirder direction.
- What part of speech is weird?
- Weird can be an adjective, a noun, a verb or an adverb.
- How do you pronounce weird?
- Weird is pronounced /ˈwɪə(ɹ)d/ (UK).
Words near weird in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: weird (page history and authors); WEIRD (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-us-weird.ogg, en-au-weird.ogg, en-GB-weird.ogg.
Cite this entry: “weird.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/weird. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.