Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definitions: Eccentric |
EccentricAdjective1. Conspicuously or grossly unconventional or unusual; "restaurants of bizarre design--one like a hat, another like a rabbit"; "famed for his eccentric spelling"; "a freakish combination of styles"; "the outlandish clothes of teenagers"; "outre and affected stage antics". 2. Not having a common center; not concentric; "eccentric circles". Noun1. A person with an unusual or odd personality. 2. A person of a specified kind (usually with many eccentricities); "a strange character"; "a friendly eccentric"; "the capable type"; "a mental case". Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "eccentric" was first used: some time in the early 15th century as a term in Ptolemaic astronomy. (references) |
| Domain | Definitions |
Aerospace | Not having the same center; varying from a circle. (references) |
Energy | A device for converting continuous circular motion into reciprocating rectilinear motion. (references) |
Mechanical Engineering | A crank in which the pin diameter exceeds the stroke, resulting in a disk eccentric to the shaft. Source: European Union. (references) |
Physics | Non-circular; elliptical (applied to an orbit). (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
Synonyms: EccentricSynonyms: bizarre (adj), flaky (adj), freakish (adj), freaky (adj), nonconcentric (adj), outlandish (adj), outre (adj), case (n), character (n), eccentric person (n), geek (n), oddball (n), type (n). (additional references) |
| Antonym: concentric (adj). (additional references) |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Caprice | Adjective: capricious; erratic, eccentric, fitful, hysterical; full of whims; Noun: maggoty; inconsistent, fanciful, fantastic, whimsical, crotchety, kinky, particular, humorsome, freakish, skittish, wanton, wayward; contrary; captious; arbitrary; unconformable; penny wise and pound foolish; fickle; (irresolute); frivolous, sleeveless, giddy, volatile. |
Exteriority | Extraregarding; excentric, eccentric; outstanding; extrinsic; ecdemic, exomorphic. |
Imbecility Folly | Narrow-minded; bigoted; (obstinate); giddy; (thoughtless); rash; eccentric; (crazed). |
Insanity | Fanatical, infatuated, odd, eccentric; hypped, hyppish; spaced out. |
Ridiculousness | Adjective: ridiculous, ludicrous; comical; droll, funny, laughable, pour rire, grotesque, farcical, odd; whimsical, whimsical as a dancing bear; fanciful, fantastic, queer, rum, quizzical, quaint, bizarre; screaming; eccentric; (unconformable); strange, outlandish, out of the way, baroque, weird; awkward; (ugly). |
Unconformity | Adjective: uncomformable, exceptional; abnormal, abnormous; anomalous, anomalistic; out of order, out of place, out of keeping, out of tune, out of one's element; irregular, arbitrary; teratogenic; lawless, informal, aberrant, stray, wandering, wanton; peculiar, exclusive, unnatural, eccentric, egregious; out of the beaten track, off the beaten track, out of the common, out of the common run; beyond the pale of, out of the pale of; misplaced; funny. |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | Oh I might have introduced him for all I know, looks at her eccentric artist friend Knox you remember Uli? (The Big Lebowski; writing credit: Ethan Coen; Joel Coen) What an eccentric performance. (Monty Python and the Holy Grail; writing credit: Graham Chapman; John Cleese) He just happens to be a little eccentric. Most geniuses are. (Seinfeld; writing credit: Andreas Lenze; Bea Schmidt) I'm eccentric. Grr! (Rat Race; writing credit: Andy Breckman) I know there's so many people that are screaming out to be superstars of some kind, and sometimes I feel guilty that I got the chance, and some of these other people that have got much more eccentric personalities don't quite get there. (Savage Garden: Superstars and Cannonballs: Live and on Tour in Australia; writing credit: James Balian) | |
Clever | Be virtuous and you will be eccentric. (references; author: Mark Twain) | |
Movie/TV Titles | Eccentric Comiques (1914) An Eccentric Sportsman (1912) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title | ||
Books |
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Periodicals |
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Music |
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Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit | Thumbnail | Description & Credit |
 | La Cueva rock shelter is an archeological site associated with the Jornada branch of the prehistoric Mogollon culture. The cave served as home of the more eccentric figures in NM's history.Credit: Rena Gutierrez. |  | A Practical Lecture on the Digestive Organs!! : by the Eccentric Doctor, A.B.E. Knee - Thigh. / Doctor Cruikshank del et fecit.Credit: National Library of Medicine. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Play | Caption |
 | Amusing; arbitrary; capricious; chancy; chimerical; comical; curious; dicey; droll; eccentric; erratic; fanciful; fantastic; flaky; freakish; funny; quaint; unertain; wagish; playful; animated; blithe; bouncy; cheerful; cheery; effervescent; elastic; fanc. |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Author | Quotation |
John Stuart Mill | That so few now dare to be eccentric, marks the chief danger of the time. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | |
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Lexicography | Devil's Dictionary | FIB, n. A lie that has not cut its teeth. An habitual liar's nearest approach to truth: the perigee of his eccentric orbit. When David said: "All men are liars," Dave, Himself a liar, fibbed like any thief. Perhaps he thought to weaken disbelief By proof that even himself was not a slave To Truth; though I suspect the aged knave Had been of all her servitors the chief Had he but known a fig's reluctant leaf Is more than e'er she wore on land or wave. No, David served not Naked Truth when he Struck that sledge-hammer blow at all his race; Nor did he hit the nail upon the head: For reason shows that it could never be, And the facts contradict him to his face. Men are not liars all, for some are dead. Bartle Quinker |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| Speaker | Term | Phrase(s) |
Thomas Jefferson | 1801-1809 | But his imagination is wild and extravagant, escapes incessantly from every restraint of reason and taste, and, in the course of its vagaries, leaves a tract of thought as incoherent and eccentric, as is the course of a meteor through the sky. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| "Eccentric" is generally used as an adjective (general or positive) -- approximately 98.47% of the time. "Eccentric" is used about 521 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Adjective (general or positive) | 98.47% | 513 | 11,826 |
| Noun (singular) | 1.53% | 8 | 124,375 |
| Total | 100.00% | 521 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expressions using "eccentric": ahead eccentric ♦ Back eccentric ♦ Eccentric anomaly ♦ Eccentric chuck ♦ eccentric disc ♦ eccentric disk ♦ eccentric equator ♦ Eccentric gab ♦ Eccentric gear ♦ Eccentric hook ♦ eccentric hoop ♦ eccentric load ♦ eccentric loading ♦ eccentric person ♦ eccentric personality ♦ Eccentric pulley ♦ Eccentric rod ♦ Eccentric sheave ♦ Eccentric strap ♦ Fore eccentric. Additional references. | |
| Hypenated Usage | |
Ending with "eccentric": elliptic-eccentric. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day |
observer eccentric | 303 |
eccentric | 134 |
eccentric newspaper observer | 103 |
eccentric southfield | 44 |
birmingham eccentric | 36 |
eccentric louisville observer | 28 |
eccentric.com observer | 21 |
eccentric newspaper | 18 |
eccentric rochester | 16 |
eccentric livonia observer | 12 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Language | Translations for "eccentric"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Albanian | ekscentrik (cranky, oddish), njeri i çuditshëm (codger, weirdie, weirdo, weirdy), jashtëqendror, i çuditshëm (bizarre, cranky, curious, dark, electric, erratic, extraordinary, fanciful, fantastic, fantastical, frabjous, freak, freakish, funny, grotesque, kinky, odd, oddish, off beat, outlandish, peculiar, pixilated, puzzling, quaint, queer, quizzical, rummy, strange, surprising, uncanny, unco, unnatural, unusual, viewy, way out, weird, whimsical). (various references) | |
Arabic | منحرف عن المسار, لامتراكز, غريب الأطوار (capricious, crackpot, cranky, curious, nutty, odd, off beat, peculiar, queer, weird, weirdo, whimsical), القرص اللامتراكز, الغريب الأطوار (crackpot), شخص غريب الأطوار (codger, crack, curious, erratic, quiz), شاذ (aberrant, anomalous, atypical, bastard, bizarre, erratic, exotic, extraordinary, extravagant, far fetched, freak, intriguing, irregular, monstrous, moonstruck, odd, off beat, outlandish, preternatural, prodigious, queer, rogue, scatty, singular, stupendous, thumping, wild). (various references) | |
Bulgarian | чудат (comic, comical, crackpot, extravagant, faddish, faddy, odd, peculiar, pixilated, quaint, queer, quizzical, rum, rummy, screwy, singular, vagrant, viewy), чудак (case, codger, crank, cure, faddist, odd-ball, oddity, original, quiz, weirdie, weirdy), ексцентричен (bizarre, cranky, kinky, lunatic, off beat, original, outrageous, outre, peculiar, pixilated, queer, singular, viewy), ексцентрик (cam, odd-ball, tappet, wiper). (various references) | |
Chinese | 怪人 (strange person), 异常 (Anomalous, Bizarre, Deviant, Eccentrical, unusual), 古怪 (grotesque, oddly, queer). (various references) | |
Czech | extravagantní (Arty), excentrik (crank), výstřední (crazy, extravagant, fantastic, garish, high-flown, queer), podivínský (cranky, freaked, freakish, grotesque, odd, viewy), podivín (codger, crank, freak). (various references) | |
Danish | excentrisk hypertrofi (eccentric hypertrophy), excentrisk hjertehypertrofi (eccentric stress-induced hypertrophy), ekscentrisk belastning (eccentric load, eccentric loading, excentric load, excentric loading, off-centre loading), ekscenterbelastning (eccentric load, eccentric loading, excentric load, excentric loading, off-centre loading), buefortanding (curved-back tooth, eccentric relieved tooth, parabolic tooth), bizarre indfald (bizarre ideas, eccentric ideas, strange ideas), barokke ideer (bizarre ideas, eccentric ideas, strange ideas). (various references) | |
Dutch | excentrische Last (eccentric load, eccentric loading, excentric load, excentric loading, off-centre loading), excentrische hypertrophia (eccentric hypertrophy), excentrische hypertrofie (eccentric hypertrophy), excentrische belasting (eccentric load, eccentric loading, excentric load, excentric loading, off-centre loading), excentrische belading (eccentric load, eccentric loading, excentric load, excentric loading, off-centre loading), excentrisch rondsel (eccentric gear, excentric gear), trommeldroger (tilted-cylinder dryer with eccentric axis, tumbling dryer), tand met gebogen rug (curved-back tooth, eccentric relieved tooth, parabolic tooth). (various references) | |
Farsi | گریزنده ازمرکز (Centrifugal), غریب (Curious, Extravagant, Immigrant, Lonely, Nostalgic, Romantic, Singular, Stranger, Uncanny, Unco, Unheard, Unmoral, Unusual, Weird, Whimsical, Wonder), عجیب (Extravagant, Marvelous, Rummy, Strange, Stupendous, Tremendous, Unco, Unfamiliar, Unfamiliarity), بیرون ازمرکز. (various references) | |
Finnish | eriskummallinen henkilö. (various references) | |
French | excentrique, original, farfelu, fantaisiste, bizarre. (various references) | |
German | exzentrisch (fantastic, wacky), exaltiert (effusive, exaggerated, exalted). (various references) | |
Greek | εκκεντρικόσ (aberrational, bizarre, crackpot, cranky, erratic, fogey, fogy, notional, pixilated, screw-ball, wacky, weirdie), εκκεντρισμόσ (kinky). (various references) | |
Hebrew | משו " (anomalous, freak, odd, quaint, queer, strange, weird), יוצא "ופן (erratic, exceptional, exotic, extraordinary, irregular, maverick, signal, singular, unusual), תמ"ו י (grotesque, outlandish, peculiar, strange, weird). (various references) | |
Hungarian | különc (crank, cure, deviant, dorky, extravagant, freakish, libertine, oddball, plummet, singular man, spook, weirdie, weirdo). (various references) | |
Indonesian | eksentrik, antik (antique, ornate). (various references) | |
Italian | eccentrico (aberrational, erratic, kinky, lifter, nutty, queer, way out, wiper). (various references) | |
Japanese Kanji | 奇矯 , 奇抜 (fantastic, novel, original, strange, striking). (various references) | |
Japanese Katakana | ふうがわり (strange), へ"じ" (crank, eccentric person, oddball), エクセントリック , エキセントリック , いよう (bizarre, dignity, majestic appearance, medical use, odd, queer, strange), いっぷう (a sealed document, a sealed letter, an enclosure), いっぷうかわった (original, peculiar, queer, singular, unconventional), へ" (area, biased, book, change, compilation, completed poem, disturbance, editing, flat, funny, incident, inclining, inclining toward, left radical of a character, odd, part of book, peculiar, queer, side, strange, suspicious-looking, vicinity), ふるった (different, extraordinary, original, striking), きなる (odd, strange), ひ りまき (abnormal, counterclockwise), きじ" (aristocrat, eccentric person, fierce god, nobleman, queerfellow), きょう'き (classical Chinese opera, extreme, pincer attack, pincer movement, radical), き"つ (backbone, grit, skin and bones, soul, spirit), きばつ (fantastic, novel, original, strange, striking), ききょう (artificial pneumothorax, Chinese bellflower, Christianity, homecoming, pneumothorax, return to one's home, returning to Tokyo), つむじまがり (cantankerous, perversity). (various references) | |
Korean | 괴상한 (Eccentrical, Excentric, freakish, ODD). (various references) | |
Manx | corragh (chequered, chequered as career, crazy, erratic, falling, hectic, infirm, irresolute, jerry-built, rocky place, sensitive, skittish, troubled, troubled of period, unbalanced, unbalanced of mind, uneven, uneven as temper, wobbly). (various references) | |
Pig Latin | eccentricay.(various references) | |
Portuguese | ebulição (boil, boiling, ebullience, ebulliency, ebullition, gurgle). (various references) | |
Romanian | extravagant (cracked, crazy, exaggerated, extravagant, fancy, lunatic, rampant, unreasonable, wanton, wildcat), excentric (bizarre, crackpot, cranky, crazy, crotchety, extravagant, fancy, fantastic, fantastical, lunatic, maggot, nut, odd, oddity, original, queer, tappet), original (air hole, archetype, authentic, creative, first hand, genuine, odd, original, originally, peculiar, queer, real, true, unique), ciudat (cranky, curious, droll, extraordinary, extravagant, fanciful, fancy, freakish, funny, intriguing, kinky, odd, out of the way, outlandish, particular, peculiar, peculiarly, quaint, queer, rum, rummy, singular, strange, strangely, uncouth, unusual, weird, whimsical), caraghios (antic, blockhead, booby, buffoon, comic, dolt, fool, foolish, funny, ridiculous, ridiculously, screaming, singular, strange, zany). (various references) | |
Russian | эксцентричный человек, эксцентричный (oddish, outre, wacky, whimsical), эксцентрический. (various references) | |
Scottish | neònach (amusing, droll, odd, surprising, unusual). (various references) | |
Serbo-Croatian | ekscentrik (screwball, screw-ball), ekscentričan (crack-brained, screwy), osobenjak (codger, crank, type, unco), čudan (flaky, funny, miraculous, odd, oddish, peculiar, pixilated, quaint, queer, strange, unco, way out, weird, wondrous), čudak (cuss, geezer, nut, odd fellow, unco, weirdie). (various references) | |
Spanish | excéntrico (crackpot, eccentrical, kinky, nut, oddball, oddbod, offbeat, original, screwball). (various references) | |
Swedish | originell (novel, original, unconventional, whimsical), original (aboriginal, case, character, crank, freak, master, master copy, minute, oddity, original). (various references) | |
Thai | ผิ"ปกติ (irregular, morbid), คนที่ผิ"ปกติ. (various references) | |
Turkish | ekseni merkezden geçmeyen, eksantrik, garip (awkward, bizarre, codger, comical, cranky, crotchety, curious, droll, exotic, fanciful, fancy, fantastic, fantastical, far out, freak, freakish, funny, funny peculiar, grotesque, kinky, odd, out of the way, outlandish, poor, queer, quizzical, rum, rummy, screwball, screwy, strange, weirdo, whimsical), dış merkezli düzen, dış merkezli, antika (antiquarian, antique, crusted, curio, curiosity, kooky, old world, quaint, queer), alışılmadık (off the beaten track, unconventional, unusual), acayip tip (duck, flake, odd fellow, odd fish, queer fish), acayip davranışlı. (various references) | |
Ukranian | чудакуватий (faddish, faddy, quizzical), ексцентричний (bizarre, cranky, eccentrical, fantastic, fantastical, odd, oddball, oddish, offbeat, outre, queer, wacky, whacky, whimsical), ексцентриковий, ексцентрик (cam), дивак (case, caution, codger, crotcheteer, faddist, maggot, oddball, oddbod, oddity, original, quiz, weirdie, weirdo, weirdy). (various references) | |
Vietnamese | người lập dị (fantastic, original), đĩa lệch tâm. (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
| Language | Period | Translations |
| Greek | 700 BCE-300 CE | ekkentros. (various references) |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "eccentric": eccentrically, eccentricities, eccentricity, eccentrics. (additional references) | |
Words ending with "eccentric": uneccentric. (additional references) | |
| |
"Eccentric" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: accentric, acentric, eccentic, eccentrie, eccntric, ecentri, ecentric, Eckenbrech, ecocentric, eecentric, escentric, etcentric, eucentric, exentric. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "eccentric" (pronounced ikse"ntrik or e'kse"ntrik) |
| 7 | -s e" n t r i k | anthropocentric, concentric, egocentric, ethnocentric, geocentric. |
| 5 | -n t r i k | tantric. |
| 4 | -t r i k | barometric, citric, dissymmetric, econometric, electric, gastric, geometric, geriatric, gravimetric, hydroelectric, metric, nitric, obstetric, optometric, parametric, pediatric, photoelectric, psychiatric, vitric. |
| 3 | -r i k | alphanumeric, atmospheric, Baldric, barbaric, boric, caloric, choric, cleric, Derrick, esoteric, euphoric, fabric, generic, hemispheric, historic, hyperbaric, hysteric, ionospheric, lyric, mercuric, mesenteric, meteoric, numeric, pinprick, prehistoric, pyrrhic, rubric, satiric, sophomoric, stearic, stratospheric, sulfuric, vampiric. |
| 7 | -s e" n t r i k | anthropocentric, concentric, egocentric, ethnocentric, geocentric. |
| 5 | -n t r i k | tantric. |
| 4 | -t r i k | barometric, citric, dissymmetric, econometric, electric, gastric, geometric, geriatric, gravimetric, hydroelectric, metric, nitric, obstetric, optometric, parametric, pediatric, photoelectric, psychiatric, vitric. |
| 3 | -r i k | alphanumeric, atmospheric, Baldric, barbaric, boric, caloric, choric, cleric, Derrick, esoteric, euphoric, fabric, generic, hemispheric, historic, hyperbaric, hysteric, ionospheric, lyric, mercuric, mesenteric, meteoric, numeric, pinprick, prehistoric, pyrrhic, rubric, satiric, sophomoric, stearic, stratospheric, sulfuric, vampiric. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "c-c-c-e-e-i-n-r-t" | |
-2 letters: centric, eccrine, enteric, enticer. | |
-3 letters: center, centre, cerite, cretic, cretin, entice, entire, recent, recite, retine, tenrec, tierce, triene. | |
-4 letters: cerci, ceric, citer, enter, erect, inert, inter, nicer, niece, niter, nitre, recce, recti, rente, retie, terce, terne, treen, trice, trine. | |
-5 letters: cent, cere, cete, cine, cire, cite, erne, etic, nice, nite, rein, rent, rete, rice, rite, teen, tern, tier, tine, tire, tree. | |
| Words containing the letters "c-c-c-e-e-i-n-r-t" | |
+1 letter: crescentic, eccentrics. | |
+2 letters: enterococci, uneccentric. | |
+3 letters: circumcenter, eccentricity. | |
+4 letters: circumcenters, eccentrically, recalcitrance, technocracies. | |
+5 letters: eccentricities, recalcitrances. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
Hexadecimal (or equivalents, 770AD-1900s) (references)45 63 63 65 6E 74 72 69 63 |
| Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519; backwards) (references)
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| American Sign Language (origins from 1620-1817 in Italy and, especially, France) (references)
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| Semaphore (1791, in France) (references)
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| Braille (1829, in France) (references)
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Morse Code (1836) (references). -.-. -.-. . -. - .-. .. -.-. |
| Dancing Men (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1903) (references)
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Binary Code (1918-1938, probably earlier) (references)01000101 01100011 01100011 01100101 01101110 01110100 01110010 01101001 01100011 |
HTML Code (1990) (references)E c c e n t r i c |
ISO 10646 (1991-1993) (references)0045 0063 0063 0065 006E 0074 0072 0069 0063 |
| British Sign Language (Fingerspelling, BSL; 1992, British Deaf Association Dictionary of British Sign Language) (references)
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Encryption (beginner's substitution cypher): (references)396969718086847569 |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Modern | 5. Usage: Commercial 6. Images: Slideshow 7. Images: Photo Album 8. Sounds | 9. Quotations: Familiar 10. Quotations: Non-fiction 11. Quotations: Speeches 12. Usage Frequency | 13. Expressions 14. Expressions: Internet 15. Translations: Modern 16. Translations: Ancient | 17. Derivations 18. Rhymes 19. Anagrams 20. Orthography | 21. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
