oddball

Meaning

Noun

1. An eccentric or unusual person.
2. A deviant stimulus that appears among repetitive stimuli during an experiment, to trigger an event-related potential in the participant.

Adj

Exotic, not mainstream.

Synonyms

eccentric

crank

geek

flake

eccentric person

kook

maverick

original

quirk

weirdo

character

exobiological

curiosity

exotic

foreign

freak

Translations

Exzentriker

excentrique

olibrius

excêntrico

Original

شاذّ

aliena

exòtic

شخْص غرِيب الأطْوار

Eigenbrötler

estrafolari

fremd

fremdländisch

Kauz

🦉

excèntric

Pronounced as (IPA)

/ˈɑːdˌbɔl/

Etymology

Compound of odd + ball. First used in late 1930s, describing an extra ball played as a bonus in pin-ball type games. Well-attested since the 1940s, with the adjective appearing earlier than the noun.