bizarre

Definition

Strangely unconventional; highly unusual and different from common experience, often in an extravagant, fantastic, and/or conspicuous way.

Etymology

Borrowed from French bizarre (“odd, peculiar, bizarre”, formerly “headlong, angry”). Either from Basque bizar (“a beard”) (the notion being that bearded Spanish soldiers made a strange impression on the French), or from Italian bizzarro.

Example Sentences

• "That was a bizarre adventure!"
• "[…]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.”"
• "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."