odds and ends

English

Etymology

From a dialectal corruption of ords and ends (“points and endings" or "beginnings and ends”). More at ord, end.

Pronunciation

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

Noun

odds and ends pl (plural only)

1. (idiomatic) Miscellaneous things.

   The garage was filled with a random assortment of odds and ends.

   • 1895, Robert W. Chambers, chapter 2, in The King in Yellow, "The Mask":

     I scraped my palette, stuck my brushes in a bowl of black soap, and I strolled into the smoking-room. I really believe that, excepting Geneviève's apartments, no room in the house was so free from the perfume of tobacco as this one. It was a queer chaos of odds and ends hung with threadbare tapestry.

Synonyms

• odds and sods
• See also Thesaurus:hodgepodge

Translations

miscellaneous things

Armenian: թաշախուստ (tʻašaxust) Bashkir: ваҡ-төйәк (vaq-töyək) Breton: bitrakerezh m Bulgarian: туй-онуй (tuj-onuj) Burmese: တိုလီမိုလီ (my) (tuilimuili) Chinese: Mandarin: 瑣碎的事 / 琐碎的事 Dutch: brokstukken (nl) n pl, van alles en nog wat Finnish: kama (fi), (colloquial) sälä (fi) French: bric-à-brac (fr) m or m pl Georgian: ნარჩენები (narčenebi), წვრილმანები (c̣vrilmanebi), ძველმანები (ʒvelmanebi) German: Krimskrams (de) m Haitian Creole: kenkay Hungarian: ez-az (hu), limlom (hu), apróságok (hu) pl Irish: giúirléidí f pl Italian: cianfrusaglie (it) f pl Latin: quisquilia f Manx: fooillagh Norwegian: ting og tang Persian: هنزر پنزر (henzer-penzer) Polish: pierdółki nvir pl, drobiazgi nvir pl Portuguese: miudezas f pl Russian: вся́кая вся́чина (ru) f (vsjákaja vsjáčina) Scottish Gaelic: criomagan f pl Serbo-Croatian: koještarija (sh) f Spanish: retazos (es) m pl, trastos (es) m pl, cabos sueltos m pl Swedish: smått och gott n Volapük: jodem

See also

• bits and bobs