oddment

American  

[od-muhnt] / ˈɒd mənt /

noun

1. an odd article, bit, remnant, or the like.

2. an article belonging to a broken or incomplete set.

3. Printing. any individual portion of a book excluding the text, as the frontispiece or index.

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oddment British  

/ ˈɒdmənt /

noun

1. (often plural) an odd piece or thing; leftover

2. (plural) pieces of wool, such as belly wool or neck wool, removed from a fleece and sold separately

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Etymology

Origin of oddment

First recorded in 1790–1800; odd + -ment

Example Sentences

Though the resulting story can seem cobbled together, with obvious seams where oddments have been joined, its bright patchwork of anecdotes acquires its own strange logic.

From The Wall Street Journal

The Mütter Museum, a 19th-century repository of medical oddments and arcana at the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, attracts as many as 160,000 visitors a year.

From New York Times

“For eight dreary decades they plodded along in near‐obscurity, mere oddments in the game of baseball’s great geometric design,” Wells Twombly wrote.

From Washington Post

From the A Western Harvest Field By Moonlight EP, another grab bag of early lint-covered oddments, Lampshade has one of Beck’s first truly indelible melodies.

From The Guardian

The temporary lodger, in his turn, stood and bowed to them, then returned to his pack of wooden oddments, sorting, arranging and polishing.

From Literature

Related Words

• odds and ends