# weird

Pronunciation: say "WEERD" US /ˈwiɚd/, UK /ˈwɪə(ɹ)d/

## Adjective

1. Deviating from what is normal or expected; bizarre.
   - Simple: Very strange, or different from what you expect.
   - _The weather has been weird all month, jumping between heat and frost._
   - _Something weird happened to the file when I tried to save it._
4. Suggestive of or having to do with witchcraft or the supernatural; uncanny or unearthly.
   - Simple: Strange in a way that seems magic or not of this world.
   - _Travelers spoke of weird shapes dancing on the moor by moonlight._
   - _A weird wailing rose from the ruined chapel as the storm broke._
5. Belonging to weird fiction, a branch of speculative fiction that deals in the macabre.
   - Simple: Belonging to a kind of scary story about strange and unnatural things.
   - _Lovecraft's tales of ancient gods are among the best-known works of weird fiction._
   - _The anthology collects weird stories from the pulp magazines of the 1920s._

## Noun

2. Strangeness; the quality of being odd or uncanny. *(colloquial)*
   - Simple: The quality of being strange, odd, or hard to explain.
   - _Her songs have a touch of the weird that keeps listeners slightly off balance._
   - _The festival leans into the weird, with parades of homemade monsters._

## Adverb

3. In a strange manner; oddly. *(nonstandard)*
   - Simple: In a strange or unexpected way.
   - _The engine has been running weird since the cold snap._
   - _She looked at me weird when I mentioned his name._

## Adjective

6. Having to do with fate or destiny, or with the Fates who were believed to control it. *(archaic)*
   - Simple: Having to do with fate, or with the goddesses who were said to decide what happens to people.
   - _Shakespeare took the weird sisters from Holinshed's chronicle, where they are described as goddesses of destiny._
   - _When the weird sisters hail Banquo as the father of future kings, the play hints that his line, not Macbeth's, is fated to rule._

## Noun

7. The Fates, personified as the three sisters who allot each person's destiny. *(archaic)*
   - Simple: The Fates, the three goddesses in old stories who decide each person's life.
8. Fate or destiny; the lot appointed to a person; luck. *(archaic)*
   - Simple: What is fated to happen to a person in life, their destiny or luck.
9. A spell or charm worked by magic. *(obsolete, Scotland)*
   - Simple: A magic spell, or special words used to make magic happen.

## Other meanings

- (verb) To destine or doom someone or something; to transform by witchcraft or sorcery.
- (noun) A prediction; a foretelling of what is to come.
- (noun) An event that actually comes to pass; a fact or real happening.
- (verb) To warn solemnly; to charge or adjure someone earnestly.

## Origin

From Old English wyrd, 'fate', through Middle English werde, and out of standard use by the 1500s. Shakespeare took the Scots phrase weird sisters, meaning the Fates, for the witches in Macbeth, and from them the word came to mean 'uncanny', then simply 'strange'.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/weird (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).