As things in the political world are getting a bit weird, strange, uncouth, and bizarre, it might be fun to explore the etymologies of some strange words.
Weird
The modern English word weird came into the language about 1400 as a noun with the meaning of “fate, destiny” and then it evolved into an adjective with the meaning of “having power to control fate.” It is from the Old English wyrd meaning “fate, chance, fortune, destiny” and was derived from the Proto-Germanic *wurthiz which came from the Proto-Indo-European *wert- meaning “to turn, to wind.”
The use of weird in the sense of “uncanny, supernatural” emerged in Middle English with the weird sisters in reference to the Norns (three fates) in German and Norse mythology. The weird sisters controlled human destiny. In the play Macbeth by William Shakespeare, the weird sisters were portrayed as being rather odd or even frightening in their appearance. Thus by 1815, the adjective weird had acquired the meaning of “odd-looking, uncanny” and by 1820 it had the meaning of “odd, strange, disturbingly different.”
Some related words:
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Weirdo, with the meaning of “strange person” came into English in 1855.
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Weirdie, in the Scottish dialect of English, came into use in 1894 referring to a “young man with long hair and a beard.”
Strange
The etymology of strange is pretty straight forward. It came into English in the late thirteenth century with the meaning of “from elsewhere, foreign, unknown, unfamiliar” from the Old French estrange meaning “foreign, alien, unusual, unfamiliar, curious, distant, inhospitable.” The Old French estrange is from the Latin estraneus meaning “foreign, external, from without.”
Originally, strange was spelled as strounge or straunge.
Alien
In the mid-fourteenth century, alien emerged in English with the meaning of “strange, foreign.” It came into English from the Old French alien which comes from the Latin alienus meaning “of or belonging to another, foreign, strange.”
Alien with the meaning of “not of earth” was first recorded in 1920.
Uncouth
The Modern English word uncouth is from the Old English uncuð meaning “unknown, strange, unusual, uncertain, unfamiliar, unfriendly, unkind, rough.” It was formed using un-, a prefix meaning “not” plus cuð, the past participle of cunnan meaning “to know.” The Old English cuð has the meaning of “known, well-known.” By 1510, uncouth had acquired the meaning of “strange, crude, clumsy.”
Bizarre
In the 1640s, English acquired bizarre from the French bizarre meaning “odd, fantastic” which came from the Italian bizarro meaning “irascible, tending to quick flashes of anger.”
At one time, etymologists had credited the Basque bizar or bizarra meaning “a beard” as the source of the English bizarre, but this is no longer seen as tenable.