odds and ends

SEE MORE SYNONYMS FOR odds and ends ON THESAURUS.COM

noun

miscellaneous items, matters, etc.

fragments; remnants; scraps; bits.

Nearby words

oddish, oddity, oddly, oddment, odds, odds and ends, odds and sods, odds are, the, odds-on, oddsbodikins, oddside

Origin of odds and ends

First recorded in 1740–50

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019

Examples from the Web for odds and ends

So when they got home her godmother went to her odds-and-ends drawer.
A Great Emergency and Other Tales|Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
Very frequently the odds-and-ends corner of the garden is the most attractive feature in it.
Amateur Gardencraft|Eben E. Rexford
Poor little gentlefolk, the odds-and-ends of existence, the pence and threepenny bits of human life!
Memoirs of My Dead Life|George Moore
A grated floor formed a small chamber immediately under the roof, where baskets and odds-and-ends are stowed away.
In the Andamans and Nicobars|C. Boden Kloss

Some talked frocks, some music, some picture-palaces, some odds-and-ends.
Nights in London|Thomas Burke

British Dictionary definitions for odds and ends

odds and ends

pl n

miscellaneous items or articles

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Idioms and Phrases with odds and ends

odds and ends

Miscellaneous items, fragments and remnants, as in I've finished putting everything away, except for a few odds and ends. This expression may have originated as odd ends in the mid-1500s, meaning “short leftovers of some material” (such as lumber or cloth). It had acquired its present form and meaning by the mid-1700s.