c. 1400, "having power to control fate, from wierd (n.), from Old English wyrd "fate, chance, fortune; destiny; the Fates," literally "that which comes," from Proto-Germanic wurthiz (source also of Old Saxon wurd, Old High German wurt "fate," Old Norse urðr* "fate, one of the three Norns"), from PIE wert- "to turn, to wind," (source also of German werden, Old English weorðan "to become"), from root **wer- (2) "to turn, bend." For sense development from "turning" to "becoming," compare phrase turn into "become."
The sense "uncanny, supernatural" developed from Middle English use of weird sisters for the three fates or Norns (in Germanic mythology), the goddesses who controlled human destiny. They were portrayed as odd or frightening in appearance, as in "Macbeth" (and especially in 18th and 19th century productions of it), which led to the adjectival meaning "odd-looking, uncanny" (1815); "odd, strange, disturbingly different" (1820).
在莎翁的名剧《麦克白》（Macbeth, 1605）中，麦克白以weird sisters称呼他在荒野上遇见的三女巫，这并没有什么不敬之意。weird sisters原指神话中的命运三女神，相当于希腊、罗马神话中的Fates及北欧神话中的Norns；而weird一词在古英语中作wyrd，原本就是“命运”的意思。weird原为名词，经莎翁这么一用，此后便转类为形容词，有having power to control fate（能够控制命运的）之意。至于它的今义“怪异的”等则是到19世纪时因受雪莱和济慈等诗人和作家的青睐而通用起来的，一般用于口语。20世纪中期出现的weirdie和weirdo都是由weird衍生的，均指“怪人”或“怪物”。
英语单词weird（怪异的）来自古英语wyrd，本意是“命运”。它与命运、冥冥中的力量或不可避免的事情有关。
从8世纪后期开始，英国人开始使用weird来表示古罗马神话中的“命运三女神”。这三位女神是三姐妹，分别负责纺织、丈量和剪断代表人的生命的纱线。15和16世纪时，苏格兰人开始使用“weird sisters”来表示“命运三女神”。
莎士比亚在《麦克白》中采纳了这种用法。在这部戏剧中，莎士比亚将命运三女神描绘成了三位长相怪异骇人的女巫，因此weird一词的含义便逐渐从命运和超自然变成了“奇怪的”和“怪异的”。