Also 5 wyrde, 5–6 Sc. werd(e, 6 veird, 7 weyard (weyward), weer’d, 8 weïrd, 9 weerd. (Originally an attrib. use of prec. in weird sisters (see sense 1), the later currency and adjectival use being derived from the occurrence of this in the story of Macbeth.
The evolution of the forms found in Shakespeare’s Macbeth was app. from *weyrd to weyard (retained in Acts III and IV in the First Folio) and weyward (used in Acts I and II); the latter was no doubt due to association with wayward, a word used many times by Shakespeare. (The later folios retain the weyward spelling, and alter the other to this or to wizard.) in several passages the prosody clearly requires the word to be pronounced as two syllables; hence Theobald’s use of the diæresis in his emendation weïrd (see quot. 1733 below), giving rise to the scansion of quot. 1755 in sense 1, and quot. 1820 in sense 4.]
1. Having the power to control the fate or destiny of men, etc.; later, claiming the supernatural power of dealing with fate or destiny.
Originally in the weird Sisters = † (a) the Fates; (b) the witches in Macbeth.
c. 1400. Sc. Trojan War, II. 2818. Vþeris said sche was, I trow, A werde-sister, I wait neuir how.
c. 1420. Wyntoun, Cron., VI. xviii. 1862. Þa women þan thoucht he Thre werd systeris mast lyk to be.
c. 1475. Cath. Angl., 420/2 (Addit. MS.). Wyrde systres, parce.
1513. Douglas, Æneis, V. xiii. 74. Admit myne asking, gif so the fatis gidis,… Or ȝit werd sisteris list gif thaim that cuntre.
1549. Compl. Scot., vi. (1872), 64. The tail of the three veird systirs.
1577. Holinshed, Hist. Scot., 243/2, marg. The prophesie of three women supposing to be the weird sisters or feiries.
1605. Shaks., Macb., I. iii. 32. The weyward Sisters, hand in hand,… Thus doe goe, about, about. Ibid., III. i. 2. Thou hast it now, King, Cawdor, Glamis, all, As the weyard Women promis’d. Ibid., III. iv. 133. I will to morrow … to the weyard Sisters.
a. 1693. Urquhart’s Rabelais, III. xxviii. 237. The weer’d Sister Parques.
1733. Theobald, Shaks. Macb., I. iii., V. 393, note. In every Passage, where there is any Relation to these Witches or Wizards, my Emendation must be embraced, and we must read weïrd [ed. 1740 Wïerd, or Weïrd].
1755. J. G. Cooper, Tomb Shaks., 99. Where three swart sisters of the weïrd band Were mutt’ring curses to the troublous wind.
1765. Birth of St. George, 47, in Percy, Reliq., III. 218. To the weïrd lady of the woods He purpos’d to repaire.
1807–8. W. Irving, Salmagundi (1824), 129. He had rather see one of the weird sisters flourish through his key-hole on a broom-stick.
1820. Shelley, Let. Maria Gisborne, 106. And here, like some weird Archimage sit I, Plotting dark spells.
a. 1854. H. Reed, Lect. Brit. Poets, v. (1857), 189. The weird women with beards meet to seal the deep damnation of their victim.
2. Partaking of or suggestive of the supernatural; of a mysterious or unearthly character; unaccountably or uncomfortably strange; uncanny.
1817. Shelley, Rev. Islam, IX. viii. Some said, I was a fiend from my weird cave, Who had stolen human shape. Ibid. (1820), Witch Atlas, 670. It is A tale more fit for the weird winter nights Than for these garish summer days.
1835. Lytton, Rienzi, I. xii. This solitude has something in it weird and awful.
1847. Tennyson, Princess, I. 14. Myself too had weird seizures, Heaven knows what.
1865. Dickens, Mut. Fr., I. i. Both men then looked with a weird unholy interest at the wake of Gaffer’s boat.
1878. H. W. Lucy, Diary Two Parl. (1885), I. 393. I hear a weird story in connection with the private history of the family of which the late baronet was the head.
absol. 1888. Daily News, 30 Aug., 4/7. Miss Seward, according to Sir Walter Scott, was a mistress of the weird in oral narrative.
1899. Sir G. Douglas, James Hogg, v. 101. Unlike the German’s [Hoffmann’s], Hogg’s ‘weird’ is seldom or never morbid, fevered, hectic.
b. of sounds or voices.
1815. Shelley, Alastor, 30. In lone and silent hours, When night makes a weird sound of its own stillness.
1860. Tyndall, Glac., I. ii. 11. The weird rattle of the débris which fell at intervals.
1865. Dickens, Mut. Fr., II. i. The person of the house gave a weird little laugh here.
1876. Smiles, Sc. Natur., vi. 100. He was awakened by a weird and unearthly moaning.
3. Of strange or unusual appearance, odd-looking.
1815. Shelley, Alastor, 448. Mutable As shapes in the weird clouds.
1861. H. Macmillan, Footn. Page Nat., 23. The soft yielding carpets of greenest verdure and weirdest patterns, woven by these tiny plants on the floor of shadowy old forests.
1865. Kingsley, Herew., Prel. He begins to people the weird places of the earth with weird beings.
1907. Bp. Robertson, in Trans. Devon Assoc., 53. Bampfylde Moore Carew, King of the Gipsies, [not] the only weird, extravagant figure that has moved across Devon’s stage.
4. Out of the ordinary course, strange, unusual; hence, odd, fantastic. (Freq. in recent use.)
1820. Keats, Lamia, I. 107. I … bade her steep Her hair in weïrd syrops, that would keep Her loveliness invisible.
1849. Lytton, K. Arthur, II. xxxvi. The prophet up the plain, Gathering weird simples, pass’d.
1855. Dickens, Holly-Tree, i. He was a man with a weird belief in him that no one could count the stones of Stonehenge twice, and make the same number of them.
1912. Eng. Hist. Rev., XXVII. Oct., 833. The ‘Guacciadim’ of p. 140 is a weird misprint for Guicciardini.
5. Comb., as weird-looking adj.
1862. [Eliz. Johnston], Gifts & Graces, xix. 184. All the trees grim and shadowy, every familiar object weird-looking.
1867. Q. Rev., Oct., 437. The Prophet first pointed out a weird-looking creature, a turnkey.
1888. F. Hume, Mme. Midas, I. Prol. A cruel, weird-looking scene, fantastic, unreal, and bizarre as one of Doré’s marvellous conceptions.
