''veer'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260708144405-00-⌔

veer - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Verb

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

• (obsolete, nautical) To let out (a sail-line), to allow (a sheet) to run out.
  • ✤ 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.¹

Noun

veer (plural veers)

• A turn or swerve; an instance of veering.
  • ✤ […] 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.²

Verb

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

• (intransitive) To change direction or course suddenly; to swerve.
  • ✤ The car slid on the ice and veered out of control.
  • ✤ And as he leads, the following navy veers.³
  • ✤ 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.⁴
  • ✤ 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.⁵
  • ✤ At this time in 2008, even as the global economy veered toward collapse, optimism about Washington ran surprisingly high.⁶
  • ✤ 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).⁷
  • ✤ As for the legions of paintings, they veer between the bland and bizarre.⁸
• (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).⁹
  • ✤ 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.¹⁰
• (intransitive, nautical, of the wind) To shift aft.⁹
• (intransitive, nautical) To change direction into the wind; to wear ship.
• (transitive) To turn.

Noun

veer (plural veers)

• (Cornwall) A piglet or a heifer.
  • ✤ But with us veers are little pigs; and in some parishes heifers are called veers too. So you see it is not such a noble name with us, that I was going to be startled at the idea of a veer eating up my grass.¹¹

Pronunciation

• (Australian, Received Pronunciation) IPA: /vɪə̯/
  • Audio (Southern England): 🔊
• (General American) IPA: /vɪ(ə)ɹ/
• Rhymes: -ɪə(ɹ)

Etymology 1

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

Etymology 2

Borrowed from Middle French virer.

Etymology 3

Printed 2026-07-08.

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Footnotes

1. 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book V, Canto XII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC: ↩

2. 1917, Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society: ↩

3. 1697, Virgil, “”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC: ↩

4. 1796, Edmund Burke, Letters on a Regicide Peace: ↩

5. 1951 April, R. S. McNaught, “Railway Enthusiasts”, in Railway Magazine, number 600, page 269: ↩

6. 2012 November 7, Matt Bai, “Winning a Second Term, Obama Will Confront Familiar Headwinds”, in New York Times ‎${}^{[1]}$: ↩

7. 2021 February 24, Greg Morse, “Great Heck: a tragic chain of events”, in RAIL, number 925, pages 38, 39: ↩

8. 2023 October 11, Jonathan Jones, “Frieze London art fair review – a graveyard of creativity for tasteless one percenters”, in The Guardian ‎${}^{[2]}$, →ISSN: ↩

9. Bowditch 2002 ↩ ↩²

10. 1966, F. K. Hare, The Restless Atmosphere, 4th edition, Hutchinson University Library ↩

11. 1868, Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Belgravia, volume 5, page 490: ↩