noun [pl.]
1 (usually the odds) the degree to which sth is likely to happen:
The odds are very much in our favour (= we are likely to succeed). * The odds are heavily against him (= he is not likely to succeed). * The odds are that (= it is likely that) she'll win. * What are the odds (= how likely is it) he won't turn up?
2 something that makes it seem impossible to do or achieve sth:
They secured a victory in the face of overwhelming odds. * Against all (the) odds, he made a full recovery.
3 (in betting) the connection between two numbers that shows how much money sb will receive if they win a bet:
odds of ten to one (= ten times the amount of money that has been bet by sb will be paid to them if they win) * They are offering long / short odds (= the winnings will be high / low because there is a high / low risk of losing) on the defending champion. * (figurative) I'll lay odds on him getting the job (= I'm sure he will get it).
IDIOMS
be at odds (with sth) to be different from sth, when the two things should be the same:
These findings are at odds with what is going on in the rest of the country.
be at odds (with sb) (over / on sth) to disagree with sb about sth:
He's always at odds with his father over politics.
it makes no odds (spoken, especially BrE) used to say that sth is not important:
It makes no odds to me whether you go or stay.
over the odds (BrE, informal) more money than you would normally expect:
Many collectors are willing to pay over the odds for early examples of his work.
moreatSTACKED
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About this entry
This is a English–English dictionary entry.
Sourced from Main Dictionary in Lughet's collection.
This word also appears under other sources in Lughet's collection — see the list below.
This entry for odds is sourced from Main Dictionary, one of the dictionaries and corpora merged into Lughet.
Does odds appear elsewhere on Lughet?
Yes — odds appears under other sources or language pairs in Lughet's collection. See the list below.
What is Lughet?
Lughet is a free trilingual dictionary covering nearly five million entries across Uyghur, Chinese, and English, drawn from more than ten source dictionaries and corpora.
