Definition of weird
2
: of, relating to, or caused by witchcraft or the supernatural : magical
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weirdly
adverb
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weird was our Word of the Day on 02/20/2016. Hear the podcast!
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Examples of weird in a Sentence
- Cosmic strings are second only to black holes in the astrophysicist's pantheon of weird objects. They are narrow, ultradense filaments formed during a phase transition—called inflation—within the first microsecond of cosmic history. —Steve Nadis, Astronomy, October 2005
- If you looked at them closely you realized they were carved with weird, pagan creatures, more like hobgoblins than men, half hidden among trees and leaves—here acanthus and there what looked like a palm tree. —Kate Atkinson, Case Histories, 2004
- As an extended fictional device allegory is used mainly in didactic, satirical fables, such as Gulliver's Travels, Animal Farm and Erewhon. In these masterpieces a surface realism of presentation gives the fantastic events a kind of weird plausibility … —David Lodge, The Art of Fiction, 1992
My little brother acts weird sometimes.
I heard a weird noise.
That's weird—I put my book down right here just a few minutes ago and now it's gone.
Recent Examples of weird from the Web
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Have the genes that control our internal body clocks (there are trillions of clocks at work all at once, said one researcher who spoke to STAT) gone haywire, ramping up or tamping down in weird ways?
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There were other animal remains as well, including deer, a turtle, a monitor lizard and a stegodon, an elephant relative with a weird sideways trunk.
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Also, the punishments of women feel very haphazard, which is weird in a society that is so devoted to ritual and being extremely regimented?
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Green tacitly acknowledges that human behavior can be weird — even in the most corporate of settings.
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Which is weird, because even out in the wild, coral spawning is a fragile process, easily disrupted by changes in temperature and acidity.
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So a galaxy without dark matter — or without some bizarre effect of gravity that would mimic dark matter behavior — would be a very weird thing indeed.
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Boston Red Sox Last year’s Red Sox were weird: Dustin Pedroia got hurt, and all of Mookie Betts, Jackie Bradley Jr. and Xander Bogaerts endured down years at the plate.
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The Guardian brings us a real weird one from the depths of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, nominally being run by Dr. Ben Carson, the famous neurosurgeon who apparently developed his skills practicing on himself.
These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'weird.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
weird Synonyms
Synonyms
curious, extraordinary, funny, odd, offbeat, out-of-the-way, peculiar, queer, rare, singular, strange, unaccustomed, uncommon, uncustomary, unique, unusual;
Related Words
bizarre, eccentric, far-out, kooky (also kookie), oddball, outlandish, way-out;
aberrant, abnormal, atypical, exceptional, irregular;
newsworthy, notable, noteworthy, noticeable, particular, remarkable, special;
Synonym Discussion of weird
weird, eerie, uncanny mean mysteriously strange or fantastic. weird may imply an unearthly or supernatural strangeness or it may stress queerness or oddness.
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- weird creatures from another world
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- an eerie calm preceded the bombing raid
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- an uncanny resemblance between total strangers
Other Occult Terms
Recent Examples of weird from the Web
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But there’s no more time to rest, Betty’s alarm is blaring and her mother and brother are acting like nothing weird happened the night before.
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Lewis called the off-season market weird, especially for guys his age.
These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'weird.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Shakespeare's Connection to weird
You may know today's word as a generalized term describing something unusual, but weird also has older meanings that are more specific. Weird derives from the Old English noun wyrd, essentially meaning "fate." By the 8th century, the plural wyrde had begun to appear in texts as a gloss for Parcae, the Latin name for the Fates—three goddesses who spun, measured, and cut the thread of life. In the 15th and 16th centuries, Scots authors employed werd or weird in the phrase "weird sisters" to refer to the Fates. William Shakespeare adopted this usage in Macbeth, in which the "weird sisters" are depicted as three witches. Subsequent adjectival use of weird grew out of a reinterpretation of the weird used by Shakespeare.
Other Occult Terms
WEIRD Defined for English Language Learners
WEIRD Defined for Kids
History for weird
The adjective weird came from an earlier noun weird, which meant “fate.” In Scotland weird was used as an adjective in the phrase “the Weird Sisters,” a name for the Fates, three goddesses who set human destinies. In his play Macbeth, William Shakespeare adapted this phrase for the eerie sisters who tell Macbeth his fate. So well-known was Shakespeare's usage that the original meaning of weird was forgotten and people assumed that it meant “strange, fantastic”—which accurately described the sisters in the play.
Learn More about weird
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See words that rhyme with weird Thesaurus: All synonyms and antonyms for weird Spanish Central: Translation of weird Nglish: Translation of weird for Spanish speakers Britannica English: Translation of weird for Arabic speakers
Seen and Heard
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