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Literary notes about oddment (AI summary)

In literature, "oddment" is used to convey the idea of a small, miscellaneous fragment or something that remains apart from a larger whole. Authors employ the term to evoke both the mundane and the idiosyncratic—a scrap of life that might be overlooked or undervalued yet carries its own unique quality. In one passage, the term criticizes the imposition of trivial extras that misrepresent the true self [1], while in another it points to a modest, self-fashioned piece that embodies a certain personal ingenuity [2]. At times, an oddment becomes the object of careful attention, an unassuming element extracted, refined, and appreciated for its unconventional form [3], and even a practical measure in everyday dealings carries this nuance, functioning as a small remainder or extra in transaction [4]. Similarly, its use to denote any intriguing, peculiar bit underscores a keen eye for the overlooked and uncommon [5].
  1. Wear your heart on your sleeve, if you will, so long as it throbs with your life, but foist not upon us this butcher’s oddment as the essential you.
    — from Italian Fantasies by Israel Zangwill
  2. And sometimes they used to bring a bit of sugar or some little oddment, generally of their own head.
    — from English Economic History: Select Documents
  3. His game was, he picked out an oddment from the heap, polished it, fitted it more or less into the silly puzzle, and stepped back to eye it.
    — from Foe-Farrell by Arthur Quiller-Couch
  4. I believe he expected me to give him a receipt in round hundreds and take the "oddment," as we call it in Warwickshire, for myself.
    — from Pan-Islam by G. Wyman (George Wyman) Bury
  5. Figs of Pharoah.” Sir John, on his constant look out lets no oddment pass him by, and the more peculiar the better.
    — from The Charm of Gardens by Dion Clayton Calthrop

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