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ODDLY
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Dictionary entry overview: What does oddly mean?
• ODDLY (adverb)
The adverb ODDLY has 2 senses:
1. in a manner differing from the usual or expected
2. in a strange manner
Familiarity information: ODDLY used as an adverb is rare.
Dictionary entry details
Sense 1
Meaning:
In a manner differing from the usual or expected
Synonyms:
curiously; inexplicably; oddly; peculiarly
Context example:
he's behaving rather peculiarly
Pertainym:
odd (beyond or deviating from the usual or expected)
Sense 2
Meaning:
In a strange manner
Synonyms:
funnily; oddly; queerly; strangely
Context example:
a queerly inscribed sheet of paper
Pertainym:
odd (beyond or deviating from the usual or expected)
Context examples
Three were men and one a woman, and all were oddly dressed.
(The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum)
Oddly enough, that very shudder did the business.
(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)
The steps fell lightly and oddly, with a certain swing, for all they went so slowly; it was different indeed from the heavy creaking tread of Henry Jekyll.
(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)
Oddly, on the same weekend, November 23-24, Mars will fully oppose Uranus at 180-degrees, often considered to be an aspect of separation (but not always).
(AstrologyZone.com, by Susan Miller)
Iridium "loses its identity," and its electrons act oddly, in an ultra-thin film when interfaced with nickel-based layers.
(Iridium 'loses its identity' when interfaced with nickel, National Science Foundation)
Sheridan Ackiss of Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, and collaborators used the orbiter's mineral-mapping spectrometer to investigate surface composition in an oddly textured region of southern Mars called Sisyphi Montes.
(Clues about Volcanoes Under Ice on Ancient Mars, NASA)
Things are settled so oddly.
(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)
They were gone, she hoped, to be happy, however oddly constructed such happiness might seem; as for herself, she was left with as many sensations of comfort, as were, perhaps, ever likely to be hers.
(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)
An international team of astronomers has found that one of the stars in NGC 3201 is behaving very oddly — it is being flung backwards and forwards at speeds of several hundred thousand kilometres per hour, with the pattern repeating every 167 days.
(Odd Behaviour of Star Reveals Lonely Black Hole Hiding in Giant Star Cluster, ESO)
About two or three days before I was set at liberty, as I was entertaining the court with this kind of feat, there arrived an express to inform his majesty, that some of his subjects, riding near the place where I was first taken up, had seen a great black substance lying on the around, very oddly shaped, extending its edges round, as wide as his majesty’s bedchamber, and rising up in the middle as high as a man; that it was no living creature, as they at first apprehended, for it lay on the grass without motion; and some of them had walked round it several times; that, by mounting upon each other’s shoulders, they had got to the top, which was flat and even, and, stamping upon it, they found that it was hollow within; that they humbly conceived it might be something belonging to the man-mountain; and if his majesty pleased, they would undertake to bring it with only five horses.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
| Learn English with... Proverbs |
"If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies in yourself." (Native American proverb, Minquass)
"When you are dead, your sister's tears will dry as time goes on, your widow's tears will cease in another's arms, but your mother will mourn you until she dies." (Arabic proverb)
"A thin cat and a fat woman are the shame of a household." (Corsican proverb)