freakish, a.
(ˈfriːkɪʃ)
[f. freak n.1 + -ish.]
1. Full of freaks, characterized by freaks, capricious, whimsical.
| 1653 H. More Conject. Cabbal. (1713) 186 Without any such freakish conceits. 1673 Wycherley Gentl. Dancing-Master i. i, An ill-contrived, ugly, freakish fool. 1712 Steele Spect. No. 514 ¶4 The most wild and freakish garb that can be imagined. 1784 Cowper Tiroc. 605 His freakish thoughts. 1791 W. Bartram Carolina 249 We found our companions busily employed in securing the young freakish horses. 1812 W. Tennant Anster F. i. viii, Her trees of tinsel kiss'd by freakish gales. 1863 Geo. Eliot Romola i. iii, Look at that sketch: it is a fancy of..a strange freakish painter. 1870 Lowell Study Wind. (1886) 40 Our freakish climate. 1875 Poste Gaius i. (ed. 2) 122 The synthesis of title and right in Civil law may be freakish and capricious. |
2. Of the nature of a freak, curious, grotesque.
| 1805 Scott Last Minstr. ii. xi, The ozier wand In many a freakish knot had twined. 1827 Hood Mids. Fairies lxxxviii, He..had stuck His freakish gauds upon the Ancient's brow. |
Hence ˈfreakishly adv., ˈfreakishness.
| 1678 Trans. Crt. Spain 26 Let us admire the freakishness of worldly affairs. a 1714 J. Sharp Wks. (1754) V. ii. 48 Such a piece of folly and freakishness. 1727 Bailey vol. II, Freakishly. 1827 Scott Jrnl. 27 Apr., That freakishness of humour which made me a voluntary idler. 1873 Symonds Grk. Poets vii. 204 But gods intervene mechanically and freakishly, like the magicians in Ariosto or Tasso. 1888 Repentance P. Wentworth II. 340 You..are fully persuaded I did it out of sheer freakishness. |