odd job

plural odd jobs · alternative odd-job · alternative oddjob

1. A spell of temporary employment.

   They believe that when a partnership works as well as theirs has, you shouldn't analyze it too much. Success came in the midforties when Paramount hired them for the musical equivalent of odd jobs.

   2003, Sam Staggs, Close-up on Sunset Boulevard, →ISBN

   2 more examples

   On the other hand, if the decedent wanted to be a veterinarian but had never worked full time, worked odd jobs, had an English degree, and had worked as a receptionist at the veterinarian's office, it might be different.

   2005, Frank J. Landy, Employment Discrimination Litigation, →ISBN

   Most of the usual things that average people sought seem to come his way anyway, for example, money when he needed it, where he'd take an odd job until he earned enough to get by for a while and then he'd hit the road again.

   2010, S. D Murdoch, Into the Field, →ISBN

2. A task of an incidental, unspecialized nature.

   I like doing odd jobs around the house.

   3 more examples

   He moved all over the States, without a cent, picking up any odd job he could get.

   1910, P. G. Wodehouse, chapter 1, in The Intrusion of Jimmy

   For the next two weeks I bided my time, sleeping at night on an army-issue metal cot in a small, bare room separate from the other men; working during the day at whatever odd job the duty officer saw fit to hand out.

   2009, Malcolm Stevens, Evan's War, →ISBN, page 205

   It was the day before they were due to arrive in Kansas City that Billy earned a hand-out from a restaurant keeper in a small town by doing some odd jobs for the man.

   1914 October – 1916 July, Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Mucker, Chicago, Ill.: A[lexander] C[aldwell] McClurg & Co., published 31 October 1921, →OCLC

present singular third person odd jobs · participle present odd jobbing · participle past odd jobbed · past odd jobbed · alternative odd-job · alternative oddjob

1. alternativeAlternative form of odd-job.

   They all odd jobbed in and around London, some were looking after children in Norway and other places or jobbed in restaurants, shops.

   2017, Evelyn Guevara Lohmann, Spies-C.I.A-Lies-Terrorist-Che Guevara, →ISBN

   3 more examples

   "I hope, sir," pleaded the abashed Mr. Cruncher, "that a gentleman like yourself wot I've had the honour of odd jobbing till I'm grey at it, would think twice about harming of me, even if it wos so—I don't say it is, but even if it wos."

   1859, Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

   The Kettles recommended Peter Moses, a little, old, apple-cheeked man who "odd jobbed" and claimed to be the most patriotic man in the "Yewnited States of America.

   1988, Zita Dresner, Redressing the balance, →ISBN, page 295

   Now, as I adjust to my first-ever nine-to-five office job (an experience not unlike culture shock, after years of “odd jobbing” to pay the rent), I find myself still answering calls to cater a wedding, henna tattoo adolescent girls at a bat mitzvah, or be a beer promo girl for a night.

   2012, Abigail R. Gehring, Odd Jobs: How to Have Fun and Make Money in a Bad Economy, →ISBN