1 Definition
Departing from what is usual or conventional in an odd, often charming way, especially in a person's habits, opinions, or style.
2 In Use
Our neighbor is wonderfully eccentric, a retired judge who keeps bees on his balcony and answers the door in a velvet smoking jacket.
3 Word Origin
ekkentros Gk. · out of center → eccentricus Med. Lat. · off center → eccentric Middle English
Eccentric entered English as a technical term, first describing circles and orbits whose center did not sit where expected. Medieval scholars borrowed it from Latin, which had taken it from Greek. By the early 1600s writers began stretching the picture to people, using it for anyone whose way of living circled around a different center than everyone else's. Over time the sense softened from mild criticism into something closer to affectionate recognition.
💡Fun Fact
Eccentricity is still a precise term in mathematics and astronomy, where it measures how stretched an ellipse is. A perfect circle has an eccentricity of zero, and the more elongated the orbit, the higher the number. Engineers also use an eccentric, a wheel or cam mounted off center, to turn spinning motion into back-and-forth motion, as in many classic steam engines. So the next time someone is called eccentric, remember that being off center is often what makes a machine move.
