Skip to content
ARCHIEENGLISH
LearnPlayWordsRanking
  • Learn
  • Play
  • Words
  • Ranking
  • Mine
← Vocabulary

oddly

UK/ˈɒdli/US/ˈɑdli/
adverbB1+2 meaningsCommon in everyday speech and writing · #5,902 of 15,258neutral

Oddly means in a strange or unexpected way. Something is not quite as it should be.

It works two ways in a sentence. Attached to a verb it describes behaviour, so behaving oddly means acting strangely. At the start of a sentence, with a comma, it flags the whole statement as surprising, which is where oddly enough comes from, and that phrase is one of the commonest in spoken English. Curiously and strangely do exactly the same job in exactly the same position.

Definitions of oddly

  1. 1adverboddlyIn a strange or unusual manner.B1+

    “He was behaving oddly all evening.”

  2. 2adverbmarkUsed to mark something as surprising.B2

    “Oddly enough, nobody had thought to ask.”

Where it comes from

  1. Middle English

    oddely

  2. English, today

    oddly

From Middle English oddely, odly, equivalent to odd + -ly.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Man Called Ove

First appears in chapter 19 of A Man Called Ove.

Practise this word

Related words

  • odd
  • oddity