oddment
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Forms: form: oddments
Etymology: From odd + -ment.
Senses: examples: text: an oddment of ribbon / of wood
text: 1926, Ronald Firbank, Concerning the Eccentricities of Cardinal Pirelli, Chapter 6, in The Complete Ronald Firbank, Norfolk, CT: J. Laughlin, p. 667,
‘Ps! ps!’ she purred, feeling amorously for her scissors beneath the sumptuous oddments of old church velvet and brocade that she loved to ruffle and ruck.
synonyms: fragment
offcut
remainder
remnant
scrap
glosses: A part of something that is left over, such as a piece of cloth.
examples: text: The Lahore Museum was larger, but here were more wonders—ghost-daggers and prayer-wheels from Tibet; […] gilt figures of Buddha, and little portable lacquer altars; Russian samovars with turquoises on the lid; […] arms of all sorts and kinds, and a thousand other oddments were cased, or piled, or merely thrown into the room, […]
ref: 1900 December – 1901 October, Rudyard Kipling, chapter IX, in Kim, London: Macmillan and Co., published 1901, →OCLC, page 216:
text: […] there in his hiding-place he kept a few wretched oddments, and one very beautiful thing, very beautiful, very wonderful.
ref: 1937, J. R. R. Tolkien, chapter 5, in The Hobbit, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, published 1997, page 75:
text: [The chest] was filled with oddments of reference: large-scale maps, back copies of Who’s Who, old Baedekers.
ref: 1974, John Le Carré, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, New York: Bantam, published 1975, Part 2, Chapter 20, p. 173:
text: […] a tall thin man with oddments of old armor buckled on over his ratty pink robes.
ref: 2000 August 8, George R[aymond] R[ichard] Martin, “Arya [Stark]”, in A Storm of Swords (A Song of Ice and Fire; 3), London: Voyager, →ISBN, pages 381–382:
synonyms: bits and bobs
bits and pieces
bric-a-brac
odds and ends
odds and sods
whatnot
glosses: Something that does not match the things it is with or cannot easily be categorized; a miscellaneous item.
examples: text: […] she pushed me inside a shop that sold oddments and seconds.
ref: 1985, Jeanette Winterson, “Numbers”, in Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, page 79:
text: Whoever had purchased this supply of arms had scoured all the darker bazaars of the international weapons market, buying a lot here, another lot there, an oddment in a third place.
ref: 1988, Campbell Armstrong, chapter 11, in Mazurka,, New York: Harper & Row, published 1990, page 251:
topics: business
commerce
synonyms: remainder
glosses: An item that was originally part of a set but is sold individually; an excess item of stock.
topics: media
printing
publishing
glosses: A part of a book that is not a portion of the text, such as the title, index, etc. (usually plural).
examples: text: Oh, I know for a fact that she’s loaned a fiver from the little oddment who has the floor under mine—
ref: 1904, Arthur Wing Pinero, Letty, London: Heinemann, act I, page 30:
text: “Come on, you daft oddment,” […]
ref: 1979, Alan Garner, Tom Fobble’s Day,, New York: Collins, page 66:
text: Unlike his mother and sisters he’s not very outgoing and he’s an oddment, scrawny and muscular he has the look of a drover […]
ref: 1984, Sumner Locke Elliott, chapter 1951, in About Tilly Beamis, New York: F. Watts, page 131:
synonyms: misfit
oddball
weirdo
glosses: A person who does not fit in with others or is considered to be strange in some way.
examples: text: 1862, Edward Bradley (as Cuthbert Bede), “The Agreeable Monk” in The Curate of Cranston; with Other Prose and Verse, London: Saunders, Otley, p. 281,
[…] there are two or three tables, where are newspapers, and some of the latest periodicals and reviews, and a miscellaneous oddment of the current sacred and profane literature, stacked for convenience of reference […]
text: […] bearing a tray containing an oddment of cookies, cake, and sandwiches […]
ref: 1948, Albert E. Idell, The Great Blizzard, New York: Henry Holt, Part 2, Chapter 2, p. 112:
text: “Since you won’t let my taxi in,” she says, “please let the driver bring out of the trunk of his taxi my oddment of purchases.”
ref: 2007, Nuruddin Farah, chapter 11, in Knots,, New York: Riverhead Books, page 139:
synonyms: assortment
glosses: A varied collection (of items).
examples: text: I’m your age treble [i.e. three times your age], with some oddments to’t,
ref: 1821, John Clare, “The Cross Roads”, in The Village Minstrel, and Other Poems, volume 2, London: Taylor and Hessey, page 85:
text: 1877, Robert Roberts (ed.), The Apophthegmes of Erasmus Translated into English by Nicolas Udall, Boston, Lincolnshire: Robert Roberts, Appendix, p. 459,
When they went to market, a basket of eggs was one of their most frequent charges, and in making their purchases at various shops the tradesman would often be asked “to take eggs for money” to a certain extent; especially when the sum to pay left an “oddment,” such as 4d. or 8d.
text: I believe he expected me to give him a receipt in round hundreds and take the “oddment,” as we call it in Warwickshire, for myself.
ref: 1919, George Wyman Bury, chapter 2, in Pan-Islam, London: Macmillan, page 58:
text: […] the agricultural year was divided up into eighteen periods of twenty days, with an oddment of five days at its end.
ref: 1967, Cottie Arthur Burland, chapter 7, in The Gods of Mexico,, New York: Putnam, page 73:
text: Of the surplus the bulk was invested, and an oddment swept into the borough fund.
ref: 1974, Francis Hill, chapter 3, in Victorian Lincoln, Cambridge University Press, page 48:
synonyms: remainder
glosses: A remaining number or amount (after a calculation).
examples: text: How did he come to join the cavalry?
That was an oddment.
ref: 1955, MacKinlay Kantor, chapter 24, in Andersonville, Cleveland: World Publishing Co., page 266:
text: […] TV fosters many preferences that are quite at variance with literate uniformity and repeatability. It has sent Americans questing for every sort of oddment and quaintness in objects from out of their storied past. Many Americans will now spare no pains or expense to get to taste some new wine or food.
ref: 1964, Marshall McLuhan, chapter 31, in Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, New York: New American Library, page 281:
text: I thought it an oddment that Alifair, with all her powers and her healing meetings, had needed Ro, a sinner, to make her well.
ref: 2001, Ann Rinaldi, chapter 22, in The Coffin Quilt, San Diego: Harcourt, page 142:
synonyms: oddity
glosses: Something strange or unusual.