WordWeight : Weighing the Words

Pronunciation : Odds
Part of Speech : n.
Etymology : [See Odd, a.]
Definition : 1. Difference in favor of one and against another; excess of one of two things or numbers over the other; inequality; advantage; superiority; hence, excess of chances; probability. "Pre?minent by so much odds." Milton. "The fearful odds of that unequal fray." Trench. The odds Is that we scare are men and you are gods. Shak. There appeared, at least, four to one odds against them. Swift. All the odds between them has been the different s "cope....given to their understandings to range in. Locke. Judging is balancing an account and determining on which side the odds lie. Locke.

2. Quarrel; dispute; debate; strife; -- chiefly in the phraze at odds. Set them into confounding odds. Shak. I can not speak Any beginning to this peevish odds. Shak. At odds, in dispute; at variance. "These squires at odds did fall." Spenser. "He flashes into one gross crime or other, that sets us all at odds." Shak. -- It is odds, it is probable. [Obs.] Jer. Taylor. -- Odds and ends, that which is left; remnants; fragments; refuse; scraps; miscellaneous articles. "My brain is filled...with all kinds of odds and ends." W. Irving.

sing. & pl.
Source : Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913