odd duck

noun

An unusual person, especially one with an idiosyncratic personality or peculiar behavioral characteristics.

Meanings

nounodd duck (plural odd ducks)

plural odd ducks

  1. 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 27
    2 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 6

    Is [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
APA

odd duck. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/odd%20duck

MLA

“odd duck.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/odd%20duck. Accessed November 4, 2026.

Chicago

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.