ODDS • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Odds

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

/ɑdz/ Listen

noun

Odds n.

Difference in favor of one and against another; excess of one of two things or numbers over the other; inequality; advantage; superiority; hence, excess of chances; probability. The odds are often expressed by a ratio; as, the odds are three to one that he will win, i. e. he will win three times out of four "Preeminent by so much odds." "The fearful odds of that unequal fray." "The odds Is that we scarce are men and you are gods." "There appeared, at least, four to one odds against them." "All the odds between them has been the different scope... given to their understandings to range in." "Judging is balancing an account and determining on which side the odds lie."

Quarrel; dispute; debate; strife; chiefly in the phrase at odds. "Set them into confounding odds." "I can not speak Any beginning to this peevish odds."

At odds, in dispute; at variance. "These squires at odds did fall." "He flashes into one gross crime or other, that sets us all at odds."

It is odds, it is probable; same as odds are, but no longer used. (Obs.)

odds are it is probable; as, odds are he will win the gold medal.

Odds and ends, that which is left; remnants; fragments; refuse; scraps; miscellaneous articles. "My brain is filled... with all kinds of odds and ends."

slim odds low odds; poor chances; as, there are slim odds he will win any medal.

See images of 'Odds'

Etymology of 'Odds'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Share |

"Odds" Quotes from Famous Books

... the part of the editors there were many and wide gaps in the supposedly consecutive series of chapters before the story was finally finished. Much of the story he dragged from his tired brain, and jotted down on odds and ends of paper on trains, while waiting in railway stations, in hotels, and in ten and fifteen minute intervals snatched from overburdened days in his office. The fact that it was a physical impossibility to give adequate time and attention to so important ...

— Booker T. Washington - Builder of a Civilization • Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe

... with the applauses of his dexterity, it was evident that he must at last be overpowered; and the nobles around Prince John implored him with one voice to throw down his warder, and to save so brave a knight from the disgrace of being overcome by odds. ...

— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott

... have ultimated here, could far more vitally imagine us, and to her, I believe, we were at once a living reality. Her perception, her sympathy, her intelligence, became more and more to me, and I escaped to them oftener and oftener, from a world where an Altrurian must be so painfully at odds. In all companies here I am aware that I have been regarded either as a good joke or a bad joke, according to the humor of the listener, and it was grateful to be ...

— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells

... some respects, sad. We knew that several who were in la Dame de Nantes would probably be left behind, as she travelled her long, solitary path, in the depths of the ocean; and there were the chances that she, herself, might never arrive. As respects the last, however, the odds were in her favour, the American coast being effectually cleared of French privateers by that time; and I subsequently received eleven hundred and seventy-three dollars for my share in that exploit. How I was affected ...

— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper

... jawin' there for? Haud oot o' the gait. Gin he bena in your box, what's the odds ...

— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald

More quotes...