Queerer

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. More unusual or peculiar than something else
2. Having a greater degree of strangeness or oddity
3. Exhibiting an increased level of weirdness or abnormality

Etymology: "Queerer" is the comparative form of "queer," so its history is that of the adjective plus the comparative ending. The adjective "queer" traces back to Proto-West Germanic "þwerh," meaning "transverse" or "across," the same root that gave German "quer," still meaning "crosswise" or "at an angle" today. Its earliest English sense was therefore literal and spatial: something set athwart, off the straight line. The sense of "odd" or "strange" grew out of that idea of being off-true or askew. The comparative ending "-er" comes from Old English "-ra," a suffix that marks one thing as more of a quality than another. Attaching it to "queer" gives the sense "more unusual or peculiar than something else," following the adjective's long move from the physical notion of crookedness to the figurative notion of oddity.

Synonyms: stranger, odder

Antonyms: normal, ordinary