oddball
Americannoun
adjective
noun
adjective
Etymology
Origin of oddball
Explanation
People who just don't fit in — they're a little strange, or somewhat eccentric — are oddballs. If you're a non-sports fan surrounded by enthusiastic football supporters cheering for the home team, you might feel like an oddball. The kid who brings her book to an amusement park is an oddball, and so is the guy who pushes his dog around in a baby stroller. This informal word for "weirdo" or "misfit" is good for describing someone whose eccentricities are fairly obvious, like your uncle, the oddball who wears full clown makeup to every family gathering. Oddball was first used in the 1940s, modeled after the earlier screwball, first meaning a wayward baseball pitch and later "eccentric person."
Vocabulary lists containing oddball
Strange
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Strange
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
In the sections of “Why We Make,” displays of historic artisanry are too often marred by oddball amateurism.
From The Wall Street Journal • May 2, 2026
Graham’s tweaked, sensitive patriarch is tantalizingly far from the heartbreaking dad of “Adolescence” and the gloriously oddball Riseborough makes the most of her faint-voiced mom’s severity.
From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 6, 2026
M31-2014-DS1 initially stood out as an "oddball," De says, but it now seems to be one of several examples, including NGC 6946-BH1.
From Science Daily • Feb. 14, 2026
French, who plays 'widow' Debbie Fendon, said: "This is a sitcom about a very strange little oddball family who commit a massive fraud but pretend that it's no big deal."
From BBC • Jan. 7, 2026
In every package there’s one oddball thing from Adah, a sort of secret message is how I think of it.
From "The Poisonwood Bible" by Barbara Kingsolver
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
