Definition of Eccentric

Eccentric

Deviating or departing from the center, or from the line of a circle; as, an eccentric or elliptical orbit; pertaining to deviation from the center or from true circular motion.

Not having the same center; -- said of circles, ellipses, spheres, etc., which, though coinciding, either in whole or in part, as to area or volume, have not the same center; -- opposed to concentric.

Pertaining to an eccentric; as, the eccentric rod in a steam engine.

Not coincident as to motive or end.

Deviating from stated methods, usual practice, or established forms or laws; deviating from an appointed sphere or way; departing from the usual course; irregular; anomalous; odd; as, eccentric conduct.

A circle not having the same center as another contained in some measure within the first.

One who, or that which, deviates from regularity; an anomalous or irregular person or thing.

In the Ptolemaic system, the supposed circular orbit of a planet about the earth, but with the earth not in its center.

A circle described about the center of an elliptical orbit, with half the major axis for radius.

A disk or wheel so arranged upon a shaft that the center of the wheel and that of the shaft do not coincide. It is used for operating valves in steam engines, and for other purposes. The motion derived is precisely that of a crank having the same throw.

Related Definitions:

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Eccentric Quotations

The amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigor, and moral courage it contained. That so few now dare to be eccentric marks the chief danger of the time.
John Stuart Mill

That so few now dare to be eccentric, marks the chief danger of the time.
John Stuart Mill

Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.
Bertrand Russell

I've always had great respect for Paddington because he is amusingly English and eccentric. He is a great British institution and my generation grew up with the books and then Michael Horden's animations.
Stephen Fry

Because artists can be extremely eccentric and insane, and unfortunately, the people they hurt the most are the people that are closest to them.
Maynard James Keenan

I was born into the most remarkable and eccentric family I could possibly have hoped for.
Maureen O'Hara

Money, like vodka, turns a person into an eccentric.
Anton Chekhov

My parents are very quirky, eccentric. They have their own world.
Katy Perry

Eccentric behavior is not routinely noticed around a movie set.
Gene Tierney

I have always idolized eccentric people.
Brandon Boyd

If this work seems so threatening, this is because it isn't simply eccentric or strange, but competent, rigorously argued, and carrying conviction.
Jacques Derrida

I am not a grammarian. Maybe my style is eccentric.
Dorothy Kilgallen

There are two contrary impulses which govern this man's brain-the one sane, and the other eccentric. They alternate at regular intervals.
Franz Schubert

You pretend to be more eccentric than you actually are because you fear you are an interchangeable cog.
Doug Coupland

I haven't been to rehab, I don't do anything eccentric - I'm really boring.
Katherine Heigl

My grandmother lived with us for a short time while I was a child. Old people tend to be slightly more eccentric - they can behave the way they want.
Julie Walters

Everybody thought I was a bit of an eccentric for wanting to be out there looking at the stars, but I still do.
Brian May

I've never once heard my mum shout and she's 83 now. She's incredible. She's very, very happy, slightly eccentric but loves laughing, which I do too.
Carol Vorderman

Women can break down barriers to opportunity, and men, many of them reluctantly, have learned to relate to women as their equals in thought and action. But except for an eccentric few, women do not want to become warriors.
Suzanne Fields

The woman poet must be either a sexless, reclusive eccentric, with nothing to say specifically to women, or a brilliant, tragic, tortured suicide.
Marilyn Hacker

To seek understanding before taking action, yet to trust my instincts when action is called for. Never to avoid danger from fear, never to seek out danger for its own sake. Never to conform to fashion from fear of eccentricity, never to be eccentric from fear of conformity.
Steven Brust

Sure, my childhood was unusual. All these eccentric, wild people frequented our home: rock stars, drag queens, models, bikers, freaks. But I was not this little rich girl. My mom and I lived in an apartment.
Liv Tyler

Desperation is the perfume of the young actor. It's so satisfying to have gotten rid of it. If you keep smelling it, it can drive you crazy. In this business a lot of people go nuts, go eccentric, even end up dead from it. Not my plan.
Uma Thurman

If you're poor and you do something stupid, you're nuts. If you're rich and do something stupid, you're eccentric.
Bobby Heenan

I was watching Monster's Ball, which is a fabulous movie. It's just a little gem: beautifully shot, and shot in a way I never would have done. It made me feel very old, really, because it wasn't eccentric for its own sake, it was just very original.
Adrian Lyne

You know, so I was a weird eccentric kid but I did believe in the power of the word and of the word being made flesh I suppose, which again I suppose came from my temperament as well as my upbringing.
Thomas Keneally

There is all the difference in the world between departure from recognised rules by one who has learned to obey them, and neglect of them through want of training or want of skill or want of understanding. Before you can be eccentric you must know where the circle is.
Ellen Terry

Tom is the most eccentric person I have ever worked with. We get on very well and I am most impressed with how he can hold an audience in the palm of his hand.
Louise Jameson

Going to Nashville to meet the in-laws was the first time when I'd been in America and not been seen as some sort of eccentric character with a cute accent.
Nick Lowe

It is no accident that I made Cartoon Town a simple little village - in many ways it mirrored my home town. And, yes, many of my puppet characters took on some of the more eccentric characteristics of people I knew there.
William Jackson

More Eccentric Quotations

Eccentric Translations

eccentric in German is exzentrisch, exaltiert
eccentric in Swedish is originell, original

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