veer

English

Pronunciation

• (General Australian, Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /vɪə/

  • Audio (Southern England)

    (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /vɪ(ə)ɹ/
• Rhymes: -ɪə(ɹ)

Etymology 1

Borrowed from Middle Dutch vieren (“to slacken”).

Verb

veer (third-person singular simple present veers, present participle veering, simple past and past participle veered)

2. (obsolete, nautical) To let out (a sail-line), to allow (a sheet) to run out.
   • 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book V, Canto XII”, in The Faerie Queene. , London: [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:

     As when a skilfull Marriner doth reed / A storme approching, that doth perill threat, / He will not bide the daunger of such dread, / But strikes his sayles, and vereth his mainsheat, / And lends vnto it leaue the emptie ayre to beat.

Etymology 2

Borrowed from Middle French virer.

Noun

veer (plural veers)

2. A turn or swerve; an instance of veering.
   • 1917, Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society:

     […] there is always a sudden, though small rise in the barometer, and a sudden drop of temperature of several degrees, sometimes as much as ten or fifteen degrees; there is also a sudden veer in the wind direction.

Translations

Verb

veer (third-person singular simple present veers, present participle veering, simple past and past participle veered)

2. (intransitive) To change direction or course suddenly; to swerve.

   The car slid on the ice and veered out of control.

   • 1697, Virgil, “(please specify the book number)”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. , London: Jacob Tonson, , →OCLC:

     And as he leads, the following navy veers.

   • 1796, Edmund Burke, Letters on a Regicide Peace:

     We are in a war of a peculiar nature. It is not with an ordinary community which is hostile or friendly as passion or as interest may veer about.

   • 1951 April, R. S. McNaught, “Railway Enthusiasts”, in Railway Magazine, number 600, page 269:

     In recent years, the attitude of the railway authorities towards large-scale visits to works and sheds on the whole, has, happily, veered round from suspicion, and even point-blank opposition, to one of co-operation and ready welcome.

   • 2012 November 7, Matt Bai, “Winning a Second Term, Obama Will Confront Familiar Headwinds”, in New York Times‎:

     At this time in 2008, even as the global economy veered toward collapse, optimism about Washington ran surprisingly high.

   • 2021 February 24, Greg Morse, “Great Heck: a tragic chain of events”, in RAIL, number 925, pages 38, 39:

     As he neared a bridge over the East Coast Main Line near Great Heck, he lost control. His Land Rover left the carriageway and veered onto the hard shoulder before biting into the grass verge.
     [page 39] It ran derailed for about 500 yards before encountering a set of points, which caused it to veer into the path of an Immingham-Ferrybridge coal train, powered by Freightliner 66521 (one of a class of locomotive well-known for being well-built enough to destroy anything that got in its way).

   • 2023 October 11, Jonathan Jones, “Frieze London art fair review – a graveyard of creativity for tasteless one percenters”, in The Guardian‎, →ISSN:

     As for the legions of paintings, they veer between the bland and bizarre.

3. (intransitive, of the wind) To shift in a clockwise direction (if in the Northern Hemisphere, or in a counterclockwise direction if in the Southern Hemisphere).
   • 1966, F. K. Hare, The Restless Atmosphere, 4th edition, Hutchinson University Library

     It is clear that when a front passes the observer, there must be a sudden shift in wind: in the northern hemisphere it will always veer, that is, shift in a clockwise sense.

4. (intransitive, nautical, of the wind) To shift aft.
5. (intransitive, nautical) To change direction into the wind; to wear ship.
6. (transitive) To turn.

Antonyms

• (antonym(s) of "of the wind, to shift clockwise"): back
• (antonym(s) of "of the wind, to shift aft"): haul forward

Translations

References

Anagrams

• Vere, ever

Afrikaans

Etymology

From Dutch veer.

Pronunciation

• Audio

  (file)

Noun

veer (plural vere)

1. feather

Danish

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /veːˀər/,
• Rhymes: -eːˀər

Noun

veer

1. plural of ve

Dutch

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /veːr/,

• Audio

  (file)

• Hyphenation: veer
• Rhymes: -eːr

Etymology 1

A contraction of veder, from Middle Dutch vedere, from Old Dutch fethara, from Proto-West Germanic *feþru, from Proto-Germanic *feþrō, from Proto-Indo-European *péth₂r̥ ~ pth₂én- (“feather, wing”), from *peth₂- (“to fly”). The sense "spring" is derived from the ability of feathers to resume their shape when bent.

Cognate with Low German Fedder, German Feder, West Frisian fear, English feather, Danish fjer, Swedish fjäder.

Noun

veer f (plural veren, diminutive veertje n)

1. a feather, plume

   Synonym: pluim

2. a mechanical spring (e.g. metallic helix which resists stress)
3. a twisted leaf, notably of a fern

Alternative forms

• (feather): veder (dated)

Derived terms

Descendants

• Afrikaans: veer
• → Caribbean Javanese: pir
• → Indonesian: per (“spring”)

Verb

veer

1. inflection of veren:
   1. first-person singular present indicative
   2. imperative

Etymology 2

From Middle Dutch vere, from Old Dutch feri, from Proto-Germanic *farjaną.

Cognate with German Fähre.

Noun

veer n (plural veren, diminutive veertje n)

1. ferry

Synonyms

• overzet
• pont, veerpont m, veerboot

Derived terms

Descendants

• Afrikaans: veer
• → Sranan Tongo: fer
  • → Caribbean Hindustani: fer
  • → Caribbean Javanese: fir, pir

Anagrams

• erve, ever, vere, vree

Dutch Low Saxon

Alternative forms

• vaaier (Gronings)

Etymology

From Low German, from Middle Low German vêr, from Old Saxon fiuwar. Ultimately cognate to German vier.

Numeral

veer

1. four (4)

Estonian

Etymology

From Proto-Finnic *veeri.

Pronunciation

This entry needs pronunciation information. If you are familiar with the IPA then please add some!

Noun

veer (genitive veere, partitive veert)

1. edge

Declension

Further reading

• “veer”, in Eesti keele seletav sõnaraamat [Descriptive Dictionary of the Estonian Language] (in Estonian) (online version), Tallinn: Eesti Keele Sihtasutus (Estonian Language Foundation), 2009
• “veer”, in [ÕS] Eesti õigekeelsussõnaraamat ÕS 2018 [Estonian Spelling Dictionary] (in Estonian) (online version), Tallinn: Eesti Keele Sihtasutus (Estonian Language Foundation), 2018, →ISBN
• veer in Sõnaveeb (Eesti Keele Instituut)

German Low German

Etymology

From Middle Low German vêr, from Old Saxon fiuwar. Ultimately cognate to German vier, English four.

Numeral

veer

1. (in some dialects, including Low Prussian and Münsterland) four (4)

Coordinate terms

See also

• Plautdietsch: veea

Jutish

Etymology

From Old Norse vita.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key):

Verb

veer

1. (Fjolde) to know

References

• “veer” in Anders Bjerrum and Marie Bjerrum (1974), Ordbog over Fjoldemålet, Copenhagen: Akademisk Forlag.

Limburgish

Etymology

From earlier vēr, from Middle Dutch vier, from Old Dutch *fier, from Proto-West Germanic *feuwar, from Proto-Germanic *fedwōr, from Proto-Indo-European *kʷetwóres.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /veːʁ/
• Rhymes: -eːʁ

Numeral

veer (Eupen)

1. (cardinal number) four

Middle English

Noun

veer

1. Alternative form of firre

Norwegian Bokmål

Noun

veer m

1. indefinite plural of ve

Old French

Verb

veer

1. Alternative form of veoir

Old Galician-Portuguese

Etymology

Inherited from Latin vidēre, from Proto-Indo-European *weyd- (“to know; see”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /βeˈeɾ/
• Rhymes: -eɾ

Verb

veer

1. to see
   • 13th century, Vindel manuscript, Martín Codax, Ai ondas que eu vim veer (facsimile)

     Ay ondas que eu uin ueer / ſe me ſaberedes dizer / por que tarda meu amigo sẽ mj

     Oh waves that I came to see / say unto me / Why my lover lingers thus away from me?

Conjugation

Descendants

• Galician: ver
• Portuguese: ver

Spanish

Verb

veer (first-person singular present veo, first-person singular preterite veí, past participle veído)

1. Obsolete spelling of ver

Further reading

• “veer”, in Diccionario de la lengua española, Vigésima tercera edición, Real Academia Española, 2014