at odds

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at odds

1. (idiomatic) In disagreement; conflicting.

   The witness' statement seems to be at odds with the evidence, not a good sign for the prosecutor.

   • c. 1605, William Shakespeare, King Lear, Act I, Scene 3,

     He flashes into one gross crime or other

     That sets us all at odds.

   • 1722, Daniel Defoe, Moll Flanders, London: W. Chetwood & T. Edling, p. 186,

     I […] began to be at odds with myself whether to be glad or sorry […]

   • 1844, Charles Dickens, Martin Chuzzlewit, London: Chapman & Hall, Chapter 18, p. 237,

     In the passage they encountered Mr. Mould the undertaker: a little elderly gentleman, bald, and in a suit of black; with a note-book in his hand, a massive gold watch-chain dangling from his fob, and a face in which a queer attempt at melancholy was at odds with a smirk of satisfaction […]

   • 1940, Zane Grey, 30,000 on the Hoof, New York: Pocket Book, 1977, Chapter 1, p. 8,

     At Pleasant Valley sheepmen and cattlemen were at odds over the grazing.

• at cross-purposes
• at loggerheads
• at sixes and sevens
• at variance