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.
There’s one enjoyably oddball visual when Passenger Man disrupts a cozy projector-and-canopy movie night in the forest and suddenly the faces of Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn are on trees everywhere as mayhem ensues.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 22, 2026
Rai is the oddball wearing not one, but two gloves.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 18, 2026
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
"For a long time, no one knew quite what to make of these oddball little blips of dimming," Bouma said.
From Science Daily ● Mar. 27, 2026
Reynie did, but he had always been alone in this, had always been considered an oddball.
From "The Mysterious Benedict Society" by Trenton Lee Stewart
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.
