weird n.

something that is weird adj.

SF Criticism

  • 1936 ‘Forrest J’ Whither Ackermankind? in Novae Terrae (vol. 1, no. 9) (Dec. 1936 –Jan. 1937) 4 page image Forrest J. Ackerman

    Even today, when I make a weird fan’s acquaintance, same seems apt inevitably to mention ‘my pal’ Lovecraft and wink knowingly—as tho I should like to put poison in HP’s potatoes.

  • 1947 Startling Stories May 101/1

    I've read some good verse dealing with the weird and fantastic and since I like poetry I would love to see Startling Stories with such a department.

  • 1948 Thrilling Wonder Stories June 128/1

    Lovecraft must have something people like; he is virtually the only legend to survive from the literature of the macabre, or supernatural, or fantastic. He is about the sole writer of the weird I would include with the best of older horror writers—William Hope Hodgson, Arthur Machen, and Algernon Blackwood.

  • 1951 Fantastic Adventures July 124/1 (editorial response to reader letter) page image

    Science-fiction is based on man’s mechanical and imaginative progress. Fantasy has to do with the inexplicable, with the weird, with the worlds outside ‘reality’, and with ‘things that go bump in the night’.

  • 2007 I. McDonald Brasyl 294 Ian McDonald

    He picked the old mall because it is enclosed and free from the eyes of cameras, but it’s big and out of the way and full of weirds and he doesn’t love the idea of her hanging around among them too long.


Research requirements

antedating 1936

Research History
Fred Galvin submitted a 1947 cite from a letter in Startling Stories.
Ben Ostrowsky submitted a 1936 cite from Forrest J. Ackerman.

We would like cites of any date.

Last modified 2021-03-20 00:03:40
In the compilation of some entries, HDSF has drawn extensively on corresponding entries in OED.