odd
Language: English
Part of speech: adj
Pronunciation: enpr: ŏd
ipa: /ɒd/
ipa: /ɑd/
rhymes: -ɒd
homophone: awed (cot–caught merger)
Forms: form: odder
form: oddest
Etymology: From Middle English odde, od (“odd (not even); leftover after division into pairs”), from Old Norse oddi (“odd, third or additional number; triangle”), from oddr (“point of a weapon”), from Proto-Germanic *uzdaz (“point”), from Proto-Indo-European *wes- (“to stick, prick, pierce, sting”) + *dʰeh₁- (“to set, place”).
Cognate to Icelandic oddi (“triangle, point of land, odd number”), Swedish udda (“odd”), udd (“a point”), Danish od (“point of weapon””) and odde (“a headland, point”), Norwegian Bokmål odde (“a point”, “odd”, “peculiar”); related to Old English ord (“a point”). Doublet of ord ("point").
Senses: examples: text: She slept in, which was very odd.
text: We made an odd party before the arrival of the Ten, particularly when the Celebrity dropped in for lunch or dinner. He could not be induced to remain permanently at Mohair because Miss Trevor was at Asquith, but he appropriated a Hempstead cart from the Mohair stables and made the trip sometimes twice in a day.
ref: 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter V, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC:
text: Jena Janovy is a strange bird—a college basketball player who is a) female and b) short (5 feet 3 inches) and, perhaps oddest of all, lets neither of those things dampen her rabid enthusiasm for the game.
ref: 1987 June 14, Karen Stabiner, “Putting her Heart through the Hoop”, in The New York Times, retrieved 29 Jul 2010:
text: Did Mary (I thought it was odd that they always called her Mary even though her name was Mary Anne, and odder that Mom refused to correct them) have time for some questions?
ref: 2012, Will Schwalbe, The End of Your Life Book Club, Knopf Doubleday, →ISBN:
synonyms: word: unusual
word: strange
word: aberrant
word: abnormal
word: alien
word: anomalous
word: as queer as Dick's hatband
word: bizarre
word: curious
word: deviant
word: discrepant
word: eerie
word: eldritch
word: errant
word: exceptional
word: extraordinary
word: fey
word: forby
word: freak
word: freakish
word: freaky
word: fremd
word: funny
word: heteroclite
word: hinky
word: incongruous
word: incongruitous
word: irregular
word: kooky
word: monstrous
word: nonstandard
word: odd
word: outlandish
word: out of the ordinary
word: outré
word: peculiar
word: quaint
word: queer
word: queer as a clockwork orange
word: queer as a nine bob note
word: queer as a three dollar bill
word: queer as a coot
word: queer as Dick's hatband
word: rare
word: rum
word: rummy
word: selcouth
word: seld
word: singular
word: strange
word: trippy
word: uncanny
word: uncommon
word: unconventional
word: unearthly
word: unexpected
word: unreasonable
word: unusual
word: unwonted
word: weird
word: weirdsome
word: yampy
antonyms: word: common
word: familiar
word: mediocre
word: abnormal
word: atypical
word: exceptional
word: exotic
word: uncommon
word: endangered
word: extraordinary
word: rare
word: strange
word: unconventional
word: unique
word: unusual
glosses: Differing from what is usual, ordinary or expected.
examples: text: [One of them would] say, 'Hi, Mother.' This might be Chrissie with the purple hair and black lipstick, or Adam, who usually wore odd leather stuff. Sometimes 'Hi' was all I heard; other times they'd stay and talk for a minute.
ref: 2003, Kenneth Rubin, Andrea Thompson, The Friendship Factor, Penguin, →ISBN:
synonyms: word: unusual
word: strange
word: aberrant
word: abnormal
word: alien
word: anomalous
word: as queer as Dick's hatband
word: bizarre
word: curious
word: deviant
word: discrepant
word: eerie
word: eldritch
word: errant
word: exceptional
word: extraordinary
word: fey
word: forby
word: freak
word: freakish
word: freaky
word: fremd
word: funny
word: heteroclite
word: hinky
word: incongruous
word: incongruitous
word: irregular
word: kooky
word: monstrous
word: nonstandard
word: odd
word: outlandish
word: out of the ordinary
word: outré
word: peculiar
word: quaint
word: queer
word: queer as a clockwork orange
word: queer as a nine bob note
word: queer as a three dollar bill
word: queer as a coot
word: queer as Dick's hatband
word: rare
word: rum
word: rummy
word: selcouth
word: seld
word: singular
word: strange
word: trippy
word: uncanny
word: uncommon
word: unconventional
word: unearthly
word: unexpected
word: unreasonable
word: unusual
word: unwonted
word: weird
word: weirdsome
word: yampy
antonyms: word: common
word: familiar
word: mediocre
word: abnormal
word: atypical
word: exceptional
word: exotic
word: uncommon
word: endangered
word: extraordinary
word: rare
word: strange
word: unconventional
word: unique
word: unusual
glosses: Differing from what is usual, ordinary or expected.
Peculiar, singular and strange in looks or character; eccentric, bizarre.
examples: text: Optimistically, he had a corner of a drawer for odd socks.
text: My cat Fluffy has odd eyes: one blue and one brown.
text: Itm , lxij almond rivetts.
Almain rivetts, a sort of light armour having sleeves of mail, or iron plates, rivetted, with braces for the defence of the arms.
Itm, one odd back for an almond rivett.
ref: 1822, John Gage, The History and Antiquities of Hengrave, in Suffolk, page 29
synonyms: single
mismatched
glosses: Without a corresponding mate in a pair or set; unmatched; (of a pair or set) mismatched.
examples: text: I'm the odd one out.
glosses: Left over, remaining after the rest have been paired or grouped.
examples: text: "Here, I have some odd change that should make things easier." As Tish turned and reached for the cigarettes, Eric took some loose coins from his pocket and placed the change from the twenty into his other pocket.
ref: 2009, Sam O'Connor, Tales of Old Las Vegas: Inside are a Few Stories Set in the 60's, where There was More to the Action Than the Games, AuthorHouse, →ISBN, page 187:
text: Third was my college loan of five thousand dollars and some odd change.
ref: 2010, Chris Thomas, The Rockefeller Fraud, Xulon Press, →ISBN, page 24:
glosses: Left over or remaining (as a small amount) after counting, payment, etc.
examples: text: I don't speak Latin well, so in hearing a dissertation in Latin, I would only be able to make out the odd word of it.
text: but for the odd exception
text: As she ran on her numerous errands Jessamy found that if she did not stop to think, she knew all kinds of odd little things that the other Jessamy must have learned, such as where the nutmeg grater lived, and which was the potato peeling knife.
ref: 1967, Barbara Sleigh, Jessamy, Sevenoaks, Kent: Bloomsbury, published 1993, →ISBN, page 115:
text: There are odd bits of green here and there in patches, but no continuous stretches. The elk, swans and woodgrouse are no more. The old hamlets, farmsteads, hermitages and mills have vanished without trace.
ref: 1998, Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, Ronald Hingley, Five Plays, Oxford University Press, USA, →ISBN, page 148:
glosses: Scattered; occasional, infrequent; not forming part of a set or pattern.
examples: text: He's only worked odd jobs.
glosses: Not regular or planned.
examples: text: The odd horse will now be employed in carting couch grass on to pasture land, carting hay, &c, to sheep in the field, carting roots, straw, &c, for feeding cattle in the boxes or dairy cows in the stalls or yards, and in various odd jobs on the farm ...
ref: 1879, Journal of Horticulture and Practical Gardening, page 262:
text: At about 14 he rises a step by getting the 'odd' horse and cart, and does all the small carting work about the farm.
ref: 1894, Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons, Sessional papers. Inventory control record 1, page 57:
text: There is also the “orra man who, like the odd horse, is kept busy on odd jobs.
ref: 1912, John Burleigh, Ednam and Its Indwellers:
glosses: Used or employed for odd jobs.
examples: text: The product of two odd numbers is also odd.
text: In their original article, Messrs Christie and Schultz found that in 70 of the 100 most heavily traded stocks, Nasdaq dealers avoided quoting prices in odd eighths of a dollar. Buyers were far more likely to quote shares at 28 1/2 or 28 3/4 than at 28 5/8.
ref: 1998 January 15, “Collusion in the Stockmarket”, in The Economist:
topics: mathematics
sciences
antonyms: even
glosses: Numerically indivisible by two.
examples: text: How do I print only the odd pages?
glosses: Numbered with an odd number.
examples: text: There were thirty-odd people in the room.
glosses: About, approximately; somewhat more than (an approximated round number).
raw_tags: with a number
examples: text: "Well, isn't it a bit unusual to run into an old friend in an odd corner of the world like this?" I asked.
ref: 1958, Henry Miller, The Colossus of Maroussi, New Directions Publishing, →ISBN, page 218:
text: Plant a clump in your postage stamp garden, or stuff them in an odd corner of a flower bed. (They prefer full sun but will tolerate filtered shade.)
ref: 2015, Karen Newcomb, The Postage Stamp Vegetable Garden: Grow Tons of Organic Vegetables in Tiny Spaces and Containers, Ten Speed Press, →ISBN:
glosses: Out of the way, secluded.
examples: text: He served from the odd court.
topics: hobbies
lifestyle
sports
glosses: On the left.
examples: text: He goes to Phrygia, and sees Scamander. "Happy are all," he says, "who are honoured by that odd clerk. Homer." In Macedonia, he finds hie mother.
ref: 1886, Walter William Skeat, The Wars of Alexander: An Alliterative Romance Translated Chiefly from the Historia Alexandri Magni de Preliis, page 120, in (modern English) notes about the Middle English text
text: I assure you, if I were Hazlewood I should look on his compliments, his bowings, his cloakings, his shawlings, and his handings with some little suspicion; and truly I think Hazlewood does so too at some odd times.
ref: 1815 February 24, [Walter Scott], Guy Mannering; or, The Astrologer. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh: […] James Ballantyne and Co. for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, […]; and Archibald Constable and Co., […], →OCLC:
glosses: Singular in excellence; matchless; peerless; outstanding.
Derived terms: at odd times
even-odd
nonodd
odd and curious
oddball
odd bird
odd-bod
odd bod
odd-come-short
odd couple
odd duck
odden
odderon
odd-even
odd-eyed
Oddfellow
odd fish
odd function
oddify
oddish
odditorium
oddity
odd-job
odd job
odd-jobber
odd-jobman
oddling
odd lot
odd lotter
oddly
odd man
odd man out
odd man wins
oddment
oddness
odd-numbered
odd-odd
odd one out
odd-pinnate
odds
oddship
oddsome
odd-toed
odd-toed ungulate
oddvertisement
oddvertising
one of these odd-come-shortlies
throdd
Related terms: ord
odds and ends