Word Pronunciation & Dictionary

oddball

/ˈɑːdˌbɔl/

Word Rarity Rare

Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.76 in modern English

Syllables: odd-ball
IPA: /ˈɑːdˌbɔl/

11

Scrabble Score

7

Letters

2

Syllables

5

Unique Chars

Meaning

noun

An eccentric or unusual person.

noun

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

adj

Exotic, not mainstream.

Example Sentences

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

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.

Regional Pronunciation

American English: /ˈɑːdˌbɔl/

Inflected Forms

oddballs (plural)

Derived Forms

oddballery oddballish

Frequently Paired Words

goofball

Synonyms

kook odd duck strange fish queer fish weirdo eccentric eccentric person flake geek

Questions

How do you pronounce oddball?: The recorded pronunciation is /ˈɑːdˌbɔl/.
What does oddball mean?: An eccentric or unusual person.
Where does oddball come from?: 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.

How to pronounce oddball

Open the pronunciation page — Open the Speakur entry for “oddball”.
Read the phonetic spelling — Read the IPA spelling (/ˈɑːdˌbɔl/) so you know which sounds to aim for.
Play the audio — Click Play to hear reference audio for “oddball”.
Repeat and practice — Say “oddball” aloud, matching stress and vowels until it feels natural.