这个习惯用语的意思是各色各样的小东西的组合。你不必费神去个别的定个名字，它是一个集合名称。这个习惯用语的形成大约已经有五百年的历史了，最初只是odds和ends这两个字，当时指的是做衣服剩下来的零碎布料和布条。后来大约到了1750年的时候，这两个字中间多了一个连接词and，于是就变成今天我们习惯使用的odds and ends。我们来举个例子说明这个习惯用语是怎么用的。
汤姆的爷爷最近不幸去世了。汤姆整理他爷爷生前保存多年的箱子时发现了许许多多零星杂物。汤姆说：
例句-1：I have never seen so many odds and ends, faded photos of men in World War I unifroms, young women in long dresses, and old automobiles dated 1910. All sorts of odds and ends that told our family history for almost a 100 years。
例句-2：Aunt Alice had more knick knacks around her home than I have ever seen before, things like a little model of the Statute of Liberty from her first visit to New York and a 1960 button saying Kennedy for President。
例句-3：That piece of bric-a-brac is a knife that belonged to my dad. He carried it for sixity years. I keep it to remember all the good times that we had together when I was a boy, (times that) he took me fishing and camping and taught me how to play baseball。
