weird
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
5 characters
Language
English
word origin
Source
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "weird", 5-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "weird" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "weird" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
weird is anEnglishadj. It means: Having an unusually strange character or behaviour. Pronounced /ˈwɪə(ɹ)d/. It ranks #1,653 in English word frequency. Often confused with wer and wid.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | weird |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adj |
| IPA | /ˈwɪə(ɹ)d/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #1,653 |
| Misspellings tracked | 7 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for weird is 5 letters long, classified as anadj, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈwɪə(ɹ)d/. Corpus data places it at rank #1,653 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 7 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 7 documented wrong-spelling variants for weird, with forms such as "ewird", "weidr", and "weirdd". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "wer", "wid", "were", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: 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 E… Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is weird, spelled W-E-I-R-D, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1Having an unusually strange character or behaviour.
- 2Deviating from the normal; bizarre.
- 3Relating to weird fiction ("a macabre subgenre of speculative fiction").
- 4Of or pertaining to the Fates.
- 5Connected with fate or destiny; able to influence fate.
- 6Of or pertaining to witches or witchcraft; supernatural; unearthly; suggestive of witches, witchcraft, or unearthliness; wild; uncanny.
- 7Having supernatural or preternatural power.
Etymology
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”). Doublet of wyrd. More at worth. Obsolete by the 16th century in English, but reintroduced from Middle Scots weird, whence Shakespeare borrowed it in naming the Weird Sisters (originally Weyward Sisters, the Three Witches), reintroducing it to English. The senses “abnormal”, “strange” etc. arose via reinterpretation of Weird Sisters and date from after this reintroduction.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: ewird,weidr,weirdd,weirrd,werid,wierd,wweird
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for weird
Misspelling Variants of "weird"
Frequency rank: #1,653 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter W in our English index: