Other forms: veered, veers, veering
To veer is to change course, especially away from a straight line. A car drifting towards the verge.
The change is usually sudden and often unintended, which is what separates veering from turning. It takes off, towards or into: veer off the road, veer towards the kerb. Sailing and weather use it precisely, since a veering wind is one shifting clockwise. The figurative sense is very common, and a conversation that veers into politics has gone somewhere nobody steered it.
Middle Dutch
vieren — to slacken
English, today
veer
Borrowed from Middle Dutch vieren (“to slacken”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in A Man Called Ove, Ways of Moving
First appears in chapter 23 of A Man Called Ove.
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