Bizarre Meaning
/bɪˈzɑː(ɹ)/Definition, CEFR level B2, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
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Definition
adjStrangely unconventional; highly unusual and different from common experience, often in an extravagant, fantastic, and/or conspicuous way.
nounAny of several types of flower with stripes of various colours., A carnation having stripes of two distinct colours on the white petals.
Sentence Examples
It's a very bizarre animal.
This is one of the most bizarre things I've ever seen.
Synonyms & Antonyms
Synonyms:
Antonyms:
CEFR Practice Quiz
The clown wore a ____ costume made of neon feathers and mismatched shoes.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The whole situation was truly ____, and nobody could explain it well.
Word Origin & History
Borrowed from French bizarre (“odd, peculiar, bizarre”, formerly “headlong, angry”), then either from Italian bizzarro (“weird, eccentric, frisky”) or, less likely, from Basque bizar (literally “beard”, from the notion that bearded Spanish soldiers made a strange impression on the French).
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"[…]no, the abjectly unheroic nature of the death,—that was the sting,—that and the bizarre wording of the resulting obituary: “Shot with a rock, on a raft.”"
— 1880, Mark Twain [pseudonym] (Samuel L[anghorne] Clemens), chapter XVII, in A Tramp Abroad; […], Hartford, Conn.: American Publishing Company; London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC, pages 154–155:
"Strange as it all was, bizarre as it may hereafter seem even to us who felt its potent influence at the time, it comforted us much; and the silence, which showed Mrs. Harker’s coming relapse from her freedom of soul, did not seem so full of despair to any of us as we had dreaded."
— 1897, Bram Stoker, Dracula, Westminster [London]: Archibald Constable and Company, […], →OCLC:
"[…] she had brass leggings to the knee, brass wire gauntlets to the elbow, a crimson spot on her tawny cheek, innumerable necklaces of glass beads on her neck; bizarre things, charms, gifts of witch-men, that hung about her, glittered and trembled at every step."
— 1899 (please specify the page), Joseph Conrad, “The Heart of Darkness”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume CLXV, New York, N.Y.: The Leonard Scott Publishing Company, […], →OCLC, part:
"I confess that I had not up to now taken a very serious view of the case, which had seemed to me rather grotesque and bizarre than dangerous."
— 1903 December 26, A[rthur] Conan Doyle, “The Adventure of the Solitary Cyclist”, in The Return of Sherlock Holmes, New York, N.Y.: McClure, Phillips & Co., published February 1905, →OCLC:
"That's what we are / We all want a love bizarre"
— 1985, “A Love Bizarre”, in Romance 1600, performed by Sheila E. ft. Prince:
Explore More B2 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
The clown wore a ____ costume made of neon feathers and mismatched shoes.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The whole situation was truly ____, and nobody could explain it well.