odd man
nounUK /ˈɒd man/
Etymology From odd + man, probably after a Scandinavian source. Compare Old Norse odda-maðr.
1
In a group having an odd number of people, someone with the casting vote; an arbiter.
2
Someone who does odd jobs.
- ‘My father always kept a dog-cart, and we had three servants. We had a cook and a housemaid and an odd man.’1915, W. Somerset Maugham, chapter 58, in Of Human Bondage:
- Their complexion was lustreless and clammy, although Aunt Evelyn's odd man had given them all the energy of his elbow.1928, Siegfried Sassoon, Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man, Penguin, published 2013, page 86:
- Related terms
- odd man out