ODDS

Pronunciation (US): (GB):

I. (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The likelihood of a thing occurring rather than not occurring

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Hypernyms ("odds" is a kind of...):

likelihood; likeliness (the probability of a specified outcome)

Domain usage:

plural; plural form (the form of a word that is used to denote more than one)

Sense 2

Meaning:

The ratio by which one better's wager is greater than that of another

Example:

he offered odds of two to one

Synonyms:

betting odds; odds

Classified under:

Nouns denoting relations between people or things or ideas

Hypernyms ("odds" is a kind of...):

ratio (the relative magnitudes of two quantities (usually expressed as a quotient))

Credits

Context examples:

Saturday morning it was "fancy starch," and odds and ends, and at three in the afternoon the week's work was done.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

—a ball of string, a letter-weight, and I don’t know what other odds and ends.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Don’t sign a contract when the Sun and Uranus are at odds, on January 22.

(AstrologyZone.com, by Susan Miller)

It's too bad, for there is no time to make other things, and I don't want to fill up with odds and ends.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

Even with a modern rifle it would be all odds on the monster.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The odds are enormous against its being coincidence.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

"We found that the higher the older person's aerobic fitness level was, the lower their odds of experiencing a tip-of-the-tongue moment," Segaert said.

(Exercise May Help Seniors with Word, Memory Problems, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)

While the initial goal was to corroborate conclusions of earlier studies about what is known as the End-Permian event, our data have consistently been at odds with what has been reported, said Gastaldo.

(Mass extinction of land and sea biodiversity 250 million years ago not simultaneous, National Science Foundation)

Higher levels of parental education were associated with lower odds of inclusion in the second group.

(High amounts of screen time begin as early as infancy, National Institutes of Health)

The researchers found that those who drank the most sugar-sweetened beverages—including 100% fruit juice—had higher odds of dying during the study, compared with those who drank the least of these.