odds and ends

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noun

miscellaneous items, matters, etc.

fragments; remnants; scraps; bits.

Origin of odds and ends

First recorded in 1740–50

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

Related Words for odds and ends

assortment, debris, hodgepodge, jumble, litter, medley, melee, miscellany, mishmash, motley, olio, patchwork, potpourri, rags, refuse, remainder, remains, rest, rubbish, rummage

Examples from the Web for odds and ends

Historical Examples of odds and ends

Some talked frocks, some music, some picture-palaces, some odds-and-ends.
Nights in London
Thomas Burke
So when they got home her godmother went to her odds-and-ends drawer.
A Great Emergency and Other Tales
Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
Poor little gentlefolk, the odds-and-ends of existence, the pence and threepenny bits of human life!
Memoirs of My Dead Life
George Moore
Very frequently the odds-and-ends corner of the garden is the most attractive feature in it.
Amateur Gardencraft
Eben E. Rexford
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

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.