Meanings
plural odd ducks
- idiomaticinformalAn unusual person, especially one with an idiosyncratic personality or peculiar behavioral characteristics.
This lad Kelley is an odd duck in many ways. . . . Unlike most college youngsters, he has no hobbies.
1936 December 11, Bill Lush, “Kelley Reveals Technique of Successful Pass Play”, in Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, retrieved 28 Jul 2010, page 272 more examples
If you are a married woman over 45 and are thinking of taking a plunge into the job market bear in mind that you won't be an odd duck in the employment pool.
1971 June 18, “The Job Market: A New Start—Mature Women Who Work”, in The Dispatch, North Carolina, retrieved 28 Jul 2010, page 6Is [Peter] O'Toole—skinny, tottering, eccentric in everything from costume to line-readings—wonderful in this role? Indeed he is. Always more of an odd duck than a leading man, age (he's 74) has given him license to play his essential weirdness.
2006 Dec. 21, "Sentiment—Not Sentimentality" (film review of Venus), Time (retrieved 28 July 2010)Synonyms: odd fish, strange bird, weirdo
Synonyms & antonyms
nounAn unusual person, especially one with an idiosyncratic personality or peculiar behavioral characteristics.
Cite this entry
odd duck. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/odd%20duck
“odd duck.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/odd%20duck. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “odd duck,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/odd%20duck.
Source: odd duck on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.