Weird's a weird word. Over and above simply denoting a significant deviation from the norm, weird satisfies its own definition even in contemporary English. Just by existing, weird manages to throw out the wonderfully helpful though trite rule of "'i' before 'e' except after 'c'." Weird's weirdness, as it were, goes much further back in time and reaches deeper levels than just having a rule-bending spelling, however. Weird's beginnings can be found in the translation of the Norse word "uror," or "wyrd" in English, meaning either one of the Norns or fate itself. The word, tracked through time, has come to be used in such constructions as "weird sisters" to refer the trio of witches--Norn reference, perhaps?--in Shakespeare's Macbeth or, more recently, the "weirding way" of the prescient Bene Gesserit in Frank Herbert's Dune.
I'm curious to learn more about weird primarily because I'd like to learn more about how the word began as something associated solely with fate and became a word with a much more commonly applicable meaning. Additionally, the transformation of "wyrd" into "weird" seems like a rather bizarre etymological shift, because there is little reason to believe that "weird" makes any more grammatical sense than its predecessor. I'm interested in weird mostly for its weirdness.
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