Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Deviating from what is ordinary, usual, or expected; strange or peculiar: synonym: strange.
  • adjective Being in excess of the indicated or approximate number, extent, or degree. Often used in combination.
  • adjective Constituting a remainder.
  • adjective Small in amount.
  • adjective Being one of an incomplete pair or set.
  • adjective Remaining after others have been paired or grouped.
  • adjective Mathematics Designating an integer not divisible by two, such as 1, 3, and 5.
  • adjective Not expected, regular, or planned.
  • adjective Remote; out-of-the-way.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Something that is numerically odd.
  • Single; sole; singular; especially, single as rendering a pair or series incomplete; lacking a match; being of a pair or series of which the rest is wanting: as, an odd glove; two or three odd volumes of a series.
  • Singular in excellence; unique; sole; hence, peerless; famous.
  • Singular in looks or character; peculiar; eccentric; at variance with what is usual: as, an odd way of doing things; an odd appearance.
  • Leaving, as a number, a remainder of one when divided by two: opposed to even.
  • Numbered with an odd number: as, the odd files of a company (that is, the files numbered 1, 3, 5, and so on).
  • Left over after pairs have been reckoned; by extension, remaining after any division into equal numbers or parts: thus, the division of sixteen or nineteen among five leaves an odd one or four odd.
  • Remaining over after, or differing from, the just or customary number.
  • Additional to a whole mentioned in round numbers, or to any other specified whole: following and after a number or quantity, or without and when it takes the place of a unit appended to a ten.
  • Not included with others; not taken into the common account; sporadic; incidental; casual: as, a few odd trifles; to read a book at odd times.
  • Out of the way; remote.
  • At odds; at variance; unable to consort or agree.
  • Strange, Queer, etc. (see eccentric), grotesque, droll, comical.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Not paired with another, or remaining over after a pairing; without a mate; unmatched; single
  • adjective Not divisible by 2 without a remainder; not capable of being evenly paired, one unit with another.
  • adjective Left over after a definite round number has been taken or mentioned; indefinitely, but not greatly, exceeding a specified number; extra.
  • adjective Remaining over; unconnected; detached; fragmentary; hence, occasional; inconsiderable
  • adjective Different from what is usual or common; unusual; singular; peculiar; unique; strange.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective not comparable Single; sole; singular; not having a mate.
  • adjective obsolete Singular in excellence; unique; sole; matchless; peerless; famous.
  • adjective Singular in looks or character; peculiar; eccentric.
  • adjective Strange, unusual.
  • adjective not comparable Occasional; infrequent.
  • adjective not comparable Left over, remaining when the rest have been grouped
  • adjective not comparable Casual, irregular, not planned.
  • adjective not comparable, in combination with a number, not comparable About, approximately.
  • adjective not comparable Not divisible by two.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective not divisible by two
  • adjective an indefinite quantity more than that specified
  • adjective of the remaining member of a pair, of socks e.g.
  • adjective not used up
  • adjective not easily explained
  • adjective beyond or deviating from the usual or expected

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English odde, from Old Norse oddi, point of land, triangle, odd number.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English od, odde ("odd, single"), from Old Norse oddi ("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”) + Proto-Indo-European *dʰe- (“to set, place”). Cognate with Icelandic oddi ("triangle, point of land, odd number"), Swedish udd ("a point"), Old English ord ("a point"). More at ord.

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Examples

  • “That is another of your odd notions, ” said the Prefect, who had a fashion of calling everything “odd” that was beyond his comprehension, and thus lived amid an absolute legion of “oddities.

    The Purloined Letter 1917

  • If you want your pamphlets and novels to look nice, beware of your binder using what he calls his odd pieces, generally monsters of ugliness.

    The Private Library What We Do Know, What We Don't Know, What We Ought to Know About Our Books Arthur Lee Humphreys 1905

  • Only the most exceptional girl will believe it her duty to remain single as an example and support to what we call the odd women; yet

    The Odd Women George Gissing 1880

  • Williams described what he called an odd request by Murray at the hospital for a ride back to Jackson's home after Jackson was pronounced dead.

    CNN.com 2011

  • Williams described what he called an odd request by Murray at the hospital for a ride back to Jackson's home after he was pronounced dead.

    CNN.com 2011

  • Williams described what he called an odd request by Murray at the hospital for a ride back to Jackson's home after Jackson was pronounced dead.

    CNN.com 2011

  • Williams described what he called an odd request by Murray at the hospital for a ride back to Jackson's home after he was pronounced dead.

    CNN.com 2011

  • Cordray also notes what he calls the odd conjunction of fewer death sentences but increasing executions, with about one per month currently being carried out.

    zanesvilletimesrecorder.com - Local News 2010

  • What strikes me as odd is the weird use of “Corporate” as a pejorative in this thread.

    Matthew Yglesias » Health Care Note 2010

  • What's odd is that I haven't been reading many long mystery series lately where the author is still alive and writing -- the series I've been reading have been bifurcating into "new and ongoing but short" and "old and finished but long."

    Barnstorming on an Invisible Segway nihilistic_kid 2009

  • TEI (Text Encoding Initiative) is a set of guidelines written in a source format called 'ODD' ('One Document Does it All') which includes the TEI source code, the TEI schemas, and the prose documentation for encoding machine-readable texts, mostly in the linguistics, humanities and social sciences.

    TEI XML Conversion Services | TEI XML Creation Services 2023

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  • A town in West Virginia, USA.

    January 1, 2008

  • Common norwegian male name

    March 29, 2009