Oddnesses

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The state or quality of being unusual or strange in appearance or character
2. The condition of exhibiting peculiar or atypical traits, often leading to distinctiveness
3. A plural form indicating multiple instances of uniqueness or eccentricity in various contexts

Etymology: "Oddnesses" is the plural of "oddness," a noun that means strangeness or peculiarity, and the plural form simply counts separate instances of that quality, so that one speaker's quirks might be called "oddnesses" in a list. The noun itself is built from the adjective "odd" and the suffix "-ness," which English has attached to adjectives since Old English to turn a quality into a noun, as in "kindness" or "darkness." "Odd" came into English from Old Norse, where a related word meant a point or a third number, which is why it has long carried the sense of something left over, unpaired, or unmatched. The sense of strange or peculiar grew out of that idea of something not fitting its set. The Middle English form "oddenesse" shows the noun was already in use in the medieval period, when the adjective had reached its current meaning.

Synonyms: strangeness, unusualness

Antonyms: normality, ordinariness