oddity
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈɒdɪti/
Forms: form: oddities
Etymology: From odd + -ity.
Senses: examples: text: In the old days, to my commonplace and unobserving mind, he gave no evidences of genius whatsoever. He never read me any of his manuscripts, […], and therefore my lack of detection of his promise may in some degree be pardoned. But he had then none of the oddities and mannerisms which I hold to be inseparable from genius, and which struck my attention in after days when I came in contact with the Celebrity.
ref: 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter I, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC, page 1:
text: An Avonside 0-4-4T with outside cylinders, bought by the S.M.A. in 1882 and scrapped in 1892 as a dismal failure, was one of the motive power oddities (some of them mortgaged).
ref: 1961 October, “Talking of Trains: Last of the M.S.W.J.R.”, in Trains Illustrated, page 586:
synonyms: word: irregularity
word: outlier
word: aberrant
word: abnormality
word: anomaly
word: deviance
word: deviant
word: farlie
word: freak
word: irregularity
word: odd fish
word: oddity
word: outlier
word: peculiarity
word: queerness
word: rarity
word: rum
word: strange fish
word: strangeness
word: unusualness
word: weirdness
glosses: An odd or strange thing or opinion.
examples: text: Fête succeeded fête in honour of the arrival of Christina of Sweden, who seemed to communicate her own reckless love of novelty to the then somewhat staid French court. Claim your privileges as an oddity, and even you yourself will be astonished at their extent.
ref: 1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], Francesca Carrara. […], volume I, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, pages 207–208:
synonyms: word: kook
word: oddball
word: odd duck
word: weirdo
word: bizarro
word: coot
word: crackpot
word: crank
raw_tags: in US
word: eccentric
word: freak
word: glaik
word: hard case
word: kook
word: live one
word: nutbag
word: nutbar
word: nutcase
word: nutter
word: oddball
word: oddity
word: odd bod
word: odd duck
word: odd fish
word: queerdo
word: queer fish
word: rum
word: strange bird
word: strange fish
word: strangeling
word: wack
word: wacko
word: weirdie
word: weirdling
word: weirdo
word: wild man
word: wingnut
glosses: A strange person; an oddball.
examples: text: The thing was unprecedented in his experience, and probably he wondered in his equine way at the eccentricities of the human race, and questioned whether oddity might not be merging into insanity in his master’s case.
ref: 1869, E[llen] L. B[iscoe Hollis], “Mr. Wilmington’s Opposition”, in Katharine’s Experience, Boston, Mass.: […] Warren and Blakeslee, […], page 311:
synonyms: word: oddness
word: rumness
word: weirdness
word: abnormalcy
word: abnormalism
word: abnormality
word: abnormity
word: anomalousness
word: atypicality
word: crotchet
word: deviancy
word: eccentricity
word: enormity
word: extraordinariness
word: freakishness
word: irregularity
word: nonnormality
word: oddity
word: oddness
word: peculiarness
word: queerhood
word: queerness
word: quirk
word: quirkiness
word: rumness
word: strangeness
word: unusuality
word: unusualness
word: weirdness
glosses: Strangeness.
Derived terms: oddity effect
Related terms: oddment