oddball

English

Etymology

Compound of odd +‎ ball. First used in late 1930s, describing an extra ball played as a bonus in pin-ball type games. Well-attested since the 1940s, with the adjective appearing earlier than the noun.

Pronunciation

• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈɑːdˌbɔl/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɑːdbɔl

Noun

oddball (plural oddballs)

1. An eccentric or unusual person.
   • 1964, Earl Warren et al., Report of the President's Commission on the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy‎^[1], page 685:

     Miss Quinn thought that Oswald spoke Russian well in view of his lack of formal training; she found the evening uninteresting. Donovan, with whom she had a date later, testified that she told him that Oswald was “kind of an oddball.”

   • 1989, Maris Soule, Storybook Hero, page 5:

     "She's different, mister. A real oddball, if you know what I mean. But your little girl would love her. All kids love the Doll Lady."

2. (neuroscience) A deviant stimulus that appears among repetitive stimuli during an experiment, to trigger an event-related potential in the participant.

Synonyms

• (eccentric or unusual person): kook, odd duck, strange fish, queer fish, weirdo; see also Thesaurus:strange person

Translations

eccentric person

• Bulgarian: чудак (bg) m (čudak), чешит (bg) m (češit)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 怪人 (zh) (guàirén)

• Czech: podivín (cs) m
• Dutch: kwast (nl)
• French: excentrique (fr) m or f, olibrius (fr) m
• German: Sonderling (de) m, Exzentriker (de) m
• Hungarian: csodabogár (hu), különc (hu)
• Indonesian: miring (id)
• Ingrian: cudakka
• Italian: sagoma (it) f, tomo (it) m
• Japanese: 変人 (ja) (へんじん, henjin)
• Macedonian: чу́дак m (čúdak)
• Maori: whanokē, korokē
• Norwegian: eksentriker
• Plautdietsch: Jräp f
• Polish: dziwak (pl)
• Portuguese: excêntrico (pt) m
• Romanian: ciudat (ro) m
• Russian: сумасбро́д (ru) m (sumasbród), чуда́к (ru) m (čudák), эксце́нтрик (ru) m (ekscéntrik)
• Slovak: čudák m
• Swedish: kuf (sv) c

Adjective

oddball (not comparable)

1. Exotic, not mainstream.
   • 1984, Steven K. Roberts, The Complete Guide to Microsystem Management:

     An oddball word processor, for example, might never be supported by such helpful tools as spelling checkers, indexing programs, footnote utilities,...

Translations

exotic, not mainstream

• Bulgarian: ексцентричен (bg) (ekscentričen)
• Maori: whanokē
• Polish: osobliwy (pl), nietuzinkowy (pl)