English

Noun

wyrd ‎(plural wyrds)

1. Fate, destiny, particular in an Anglo-Saxon or 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.

Old English

Etymology

From Proto-Germanic *wurdiz, from Proto-Indo-European *wrti-, 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.

Pronunciation

Noun

wyrd f

1. fate, destiny

   Gæð a wyrd swa hio scel. Fate always goes as she must. (Beowulf l. 455)

2. (in the plural) the Fates
3. event, occurrence

Declension

Descendants

• English weird, wyrd