odd man
English
[edit]Etymology
[edit]From odd + man, probably after a Scandinavian source. Compare Old Norse odda-maðr.
Pronunciation
[edit]Noun
[edit]- In a group having an odd number of people, someone with the casting vote; an arbiter. [from 15th c.]
- Someone who does odd jobs. [from 18th c.]
- 1915, W. Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage, chapter 58:
- ‘My father always kept a dog-cart, and we had three servants. We had a cook and a housemaid and an odd man.’
- 1928, Siegfried Sassoon, Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man, Penguin, published 2013, page 86:
- Their complexion was lustreless and clammy, although Aunt Evelyn's odd man had given them all the energy of his elbow.
- 1915, W. Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage, chapter 58:
- (rowing) A man who trains in company with a boat's crew, so that he can take the place of anybody who falls ill.