Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A fleck or streak of color.
  • transitive verb To speckle or streak with color.
  • noun A thing or occurrence that is markedly unusual or irregular.
  • noun An abnormally formed organism, especially one regarded as a curiosity.
  • noun A sudden capricious turn of mind; a whim.
  • noun A drug user or addict.
  • noun An eccentric or nonconformist person, especially a member of a counterculture.
  • noun An enthusiast.
  • adjective Highly unusual or irregular.
  • intransitive & transitive verb To experience or cause to experience frightening hallucinations or feelings of paranoia, especially as a result of taking a drug. Often used with out.
  • intransitive & transitive verb To behave or cause to behave irrationally and uncontrollably. Often used with out.
  • intransitive & transitive verb To become or cause to become greatly excited or upset. Often used with out.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A sudden and apparently causeless change or turn of the mind; a wilful whim or vagary; a capricious notion or prank.
  • noun An abnormal object or production; a strange or curious result of real or apparent vagary: as, a freak of art or of nature.
  • To variegate; streak or fleck.
  • To gambol; frolic.
  • noun A man,, particularly a bold, strong, vigorous man.
  • noun A fellow; more commonly, a petulant young man.
  • noun A splash, fleck, or streak of color.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • intransitive verb to react with irrationality or extreme emotion; to lose one's composure; -- often used in the phrase freak out.
  • intransitive verb to become irrational or to experience hallucinations under the influence of drugs; -- often used in the phrase freak out.
  • noun A sudden causeless change or turn of the mind; a whim of fancy; a capricious prank; a vagary or caprice.
  • noun a rare and unpredictable event.
  • noun an habitual drug user, especially one who uses psychedelic drugs.
  • noun an animal or person with a visible congenital abnormality; -- applied especially to those who appear in a circus sideshow.
  • transitive verb rare To variegate; to checker; to streak.
  • transitive verb to cause (a person) react with great distress or extreme emotion; -- often used in the phrase freak out.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A man, particularly a bold, strong, vigorous man.
  • noun Scotland A fellow; a petulant, young man.
  • noun A sudden causeless change or turn of the mind; a whim of fancy; a capricious prank; a vagary or caprice.
  • noun Someone or something that is markedly unusual.
  • noun A hippie.
  • noun A drug addict.
  • noun of a person A nonconformist, especially in appearance, social behavior, sexual orientation, gender identity, and/or business practices; an oddball, especially in physiology (i.e., "circus freak"); unique, sometimes in a displeasing way.
  • noun bodybuilding A person whose physique has grown far beyond the normal limits of muscular development; often a bodybuilder weighing more than 120 kilos (260 pounds).
  • noun An enthusiast, or person who has an obsession with, or extreme knowledge of, something.
  • noun A very sexually perverse individual, usually used affectionately or in another good willed context.
  • verb transitive To make greatly distressed and/or a discomposed appearance
  • verb transitive To be placed or place someone under the influence of a psychedelic drug
  • verb transitive To streak
  • verb intransitive To experience reality withdrawal, or hallucinations (nightmarish), to behave irrational or unconventional due to drug use.
  • verb intransitive To react extremely or irrationally, usually under distress or discomposure
  • adjective strange, weird

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb lose one's nerve
  • noun someone who is so ardently devoted to something that it resembles an addiction
  • noun a person or animal that is markedly unusual or deformed

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[From freak.]

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Origin unknown.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English freke, freike ("a bold man, warrior, man, creature"), from Old English freca ("a bold man, warrior, hero"), from Proto-Germanic *frekô (“an active or eagre man, warrior, wolf”), from Proto-Germanic *frekaz (“active, bold, desirous, greedy”), from Proto-Indo-European *pereg-, *spereg- (“to shrug, be quick, twitch, splash, blast”). Cognate with Old Norse freki ("greedy or avaricious one, a wolf"), Old High German freh ("eager"), Old English frēcne ("dangerous, daring, courageous, bold").

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

1560, "sudden change of mind, whim", of uncertain origin. Perhaps related to Old English frician ("to leap, dance"), or Middle English frek ("insolent, daring"), from Old English frec ("desirous, greedy, eager, bold, daring"), from Proto-Germanic *frekaz, *frakaz (“hard, efficient, greedy, bold, audacious”). Compare Old High German freh ("eager"), Old English frēcne ("dangerous, daring, courageous, bold").

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Examples

  • If Mr. Webster had decided to put the word freak in his dictionary, Anna Fitzgerald would be the best definition he could give.

    My Sister’s Keeper Jodi Picoult 2004

  • Greg, I think the term freak show is apropos because of the first definition of the word here:

    Stand Firm 2009

  • You see, the frequency used by him and in what we call freak bombs, acts first on brain and nerve cells.

    Archive 2009-03-01 Johnny Pez 2009

  • You see, the frequency used by him and in what we call freak bombs, acts first on brain and nerve cells.

    "High-Frequency War" by Harl Vincent, part 3 Johnny Pez 2009

  • We talked to a spokesman for the balloon company, expressed his regrets of course, and says they're trying to determine what caused what he calls a freak fire.

    CNN Transcript Aug 25, 2007 2007

  • Withdrawal now? withdrawal later? troop expansion? what? what the freak is your positionh?

    Think Progress » Debunking the Right: The World Did Not See the Iraqi Threat as Bush Did 2005

  • We talked to a spokesman for the balloon company, expressed his regrets of course, and says they're trying to determine what caused what he calls a freak fire.

    CNN Transcript Aug 26, 2007 2007

  • He expressed his regret and says they are trying to determine exactly what caused what he called a freak fire.

    CNN Transcript Aug 25, 2007 2007

  • SF - Larry Fitzgerald WR Arizona - Fitz is what we call a freak of an athlete.

    College Basketball by Collegehoops.net - CHN IS YOUR HOME FOR COLLEGE BASKETBALL & THE NCAA TOURNAMENT 2009

  • And not the kind of freak show where everybody's trying to be a freak, but the kind where people really are really freaky and are usually trying their darnedest to seem normal, and when you meet them you might think for about five seconds that they're actually normal, but then they inadvertently let there freak flag fly, and you suddenly realize, "Wow, this person is a freakin 'freak!"

    Wesson Oil Slimbolala 2006

Comments

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  • In stamp collecting, an abnormal, usually nonrepetitive occurrence in the production of stamps that results in a variation from the normal stamp but falls short of producing an error. Most paper folds, overinking and perforation shifts are freaks. Abnormalities that occur repetitively are called varieties and may result in major errors.

    August 26, 2008