oddment

[ od-muhnt ]

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.

oddment

/ 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

Word History and Origins

Origin of oddment¹

First recorded in 1790–1800; odd + -ment

Example Sentences

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

And in crazy quilts, oddments of fabric rub up against each other to the point of dizziness.

From The Guardian

Related Words

• odds and ends