Oddity
noun ·Common ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 An odd or strange thing or opinion. countable
"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."
- 2 something unusual — perhaps worthy of collecting wordnet
- 3 A strange person; an oddball. countable
"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."
- 4 a strange attitude or habit wordnet
- 5 Strangeness. uncountable
"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."
Show 1 more definition
- 6 eccentricity that is not easily explained wordnet
Example
More examples"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."
Etymology
From odd + -ity.
Related phrases
More for "oddity"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.