odds and ends
Miscellaneous things; oddments
Meaning adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
“I keep my odds and ends in a kitchen drawer.”
“You can find some useful odds and ends at the local flea market.”
“He puts all his small odds and ends into a plastic box.”
“Before moving, she spent the weekend sorting through odds and ends she had collected over the years.”
“The mechanic spent the afternoon looking for a few odds and ends to finish repairing the old truck.”
“We still have some odds and ends to finish before the new office is ready for the team.”
“The tailor used various odds and ends of colorful fabric to create a unique pattern on the back of the jacket.”
“The attic was filled with nothing but forgotten odds and ends — faded postcards, broken clocks, and keys to doors that no longer existed.”
From a dialectal corruption of the earlier phrase *ords and ends*, meaning points and endings or beginnings and ends. The term preserves the obsolete *ord*, from Old English *ord*, denoting a point, beginning, or the foremost part of a weapon. The current form emerged as the initial vowel shifted, leaving the original sense of start and finish to signify various remnants.
- 01
all ends up
Completely; totally.
- 02
arse end of nowhere
A very remote place.
- 03
beat the odds
To succeed despite being unlikely to do so.
- 04
big end of town
The top end of town.
- 05
bitter end
The end of a long and difficult process.
- 06
burn the candle at both ends
To work hard night and day; to sleep late and wake up early; to overwork or overexert oneself.
- 07
business end
The part of an object (chiefly a tool or weapon) that is physically used for its operation, rather than some other part such as the part by which it is held.
- 08
come to a sticky end
To die unpleasantly due to one's actions.
Last updated August 10, 2026