Odd

How to spell odd

3 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce odd

What does odd mean?

1. adjectiveDifferent from what is usual or expected; strange or peculiar.
2. adjectiveOf a whole number, not divisible by two; the opposite of even.
3. adjectiveOccasional, occurring now and then, or left over from a set.

Odd in a sentence

• There was an odd smell coming from the back of the fridge.

• Houses with an odd number are on the left side of the street.

• He earns extra cash doing odd jobs around the neighbourhood.

• He gave her an odd look when she changed her story.

• Three and seven are both odd numbers.

• There were a few odd socks left in the drawer with no match.

Where does odd come from?

Language of origin: Old Norse

The word comes from the Old Norse oddi, which literally meant a point of land or the triangular tip of a weapon, and by extension a third or unpaired thing that stuck out beyond a matched pair. Norse speakers used the idea of a point sticking out alone to describe the leftover unit in a count, the number that cannot be paired evenly, and that mathematical sense reached English around the 1300s. From 'not even' the meaning broadened to 'extra' or 'occasional', as in odd jobs, and then to 'strange' or 'peculiar', since something that stands apart from the matched, expected pattern seems out of place. English absorbed the word during the long contact between Norse settlers and Old English speakers, which is why such a short, plain-looking word carries Scandinavian rather than native roots. The doubled d is the small spelling point to remember, since the word is otherwise as simple as it sounds.

How the word is built

• odd (single root, from Old Norse oddi 'point, triangle, odd number'); no prefix or suffix

Words that sound like odd

They sound the same but mean different things, so the meaning decides which spelling to write.

• odds: The ratio or probability that measures how likely something is to happen, especially in betting.