wyrd

See also: Wyrd

English

Etymology

Learned borrowing from Old English wyrd. Doublet of weird.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /wɪəd/, IPA^(key): /wɝd/[1], IPA^(key): /wiɚd/[2], [3]

Noun

wyrd (countable and uncountable, plural wyrds)

1. Fate, destiny, particularly in an Anglo-Saxon or Old Norse context.
   • 1983, Brian Bates, The Way of Wyrd: Tales of an Anglo-Saxon Sorcerer, Century:

     Wyrd is too vast, too complex for us to comprehend, for we are ourselves part of wyrd and cannot stand back to observe it as if it were a separate force.

   • 1992, Fred Alan Wolf, The eagle's quest: a physicist's search for truth in the heart of the shamanic world, Simon and Schuster, page 51:

     I had journeyed back to England as part of my research on this book to meet with two Englishmen who were practicing Anglo-Saxon shamans who had been researching and practicing the sounds and ways of wyrd.

   • 2009, Margaret Weis, Tracy Hickman, Bones of the Dragon: Volume 1, Macmillan, page 78:

     His three sisters sat, beneath the tree, one twisting the wyrd on her distaff, one spinning the wyrd on her wheel, one weaving the wyrds of gods and men on her loom.

See also

• wyrd folk

Old English

Alternative forms

• *werd — Kentish
• weord

Etymology

From Proto-Germanic *wurdiz, from Proto-Indo-European *wr̥ti-, a verbal abstract from the root *wert- (“to turn”) (whence Latin vertere), related to the Old English verb weorþan (“to grow into, become”) (compare Dutch worden, German werden). Cognate with Old Saxon wurd, Old High German wurt, Old Norse urðr (“fate”) (Old Norse Urðr (“one of 3 norns”)).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /wyrd/, [wyrˠd]

Noun

wyrd f

1. fate, destiny
   • Beowulf, line 455

     Gǣþ ā wyrd swā hēo sċeal.

     Fate always goes as it must.

   Ne wyrcþ man his āgene wyrd, ac hēo hine.

   You don't create your own fate, it creates you.

   Wyrd wielt þisse weorolde, ac blindlīċe and būtan andġiete.

   Fate controls this world, but blindly and without purpose.

2. (in the plural) the Fates
3. event, occurrence
   • late 9th century, King Alfred's translation of Boethius' Metres of Boethius, lines 226-238

     Ne þearf lēoda nān wēnan þǣre wyrde, þæt weriġe flǣsc þæt mōd monna ǣniġes, eallunga tō him æfter mæġ onwendan; ac þā unþēawas ǣlces mōdes, and þ inġeþonc ǣlces monnes þone līchoman līt þider hit wille.

     Nor needs any man expect that event, that the vile flesh the mind of any man, Altogether to it should ever turn; but the vices of every mind, and the thought of every man, leads the body Whither it will.

Declension

Declension of wyrd (strong i-stem)

Case	Singular	Plural
nominative	wyrd	wyrde, wyrda
accusative	wyrd, wyrde	wyrde, wyrda
genitive	wyrde	wyrda
dative	wyrde	wyrdum

Synonyms

• ġifeþe
• ġesceaft

Related terms

• Wyrd

Descendants

• Middle English: werde, weerde, weird, werd, werede, werid, wierde, wired, wird, wirde, wired, wirid, word, wyerde, wyrde
  • English: werd, weard (obsolete)
  • Middle Scots: weird, werd
    • Scots: weird
    • → English: weird
• → English: wyrd