eccentricity

eccentricity, idiosyncrasy are not always clearly distinguished when they denote an act, a practice, or a characteristic that impresses the observer as strange or singular.

Eccentricity (compare STRANGE) emphasizes the idea of divergence from the usual or customary; idiosyncrasy implies a following of one's peculiar temperament or bent especially in trait, trick, or habit; the former often suggests mental aberration, the latter, strong individuality and independence of action

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as the country became more thickly settled and its economy more tightly knit, eccentricity declined and conformity became a virtue— Commager

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[his] house . . . had an outer and visible aspect of proud reserve, and appeared to have developed some of the eccentricities which come of isolation— Bierce

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letters to native princes, telling them ... to refrain from kidnapping women, or filling offenders with pounded red pepper, and eccentricities of that kind— Kipling

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this decided love of the slope, or bank above the wall, rather than below it, is one of Turner's most marked idiosyncrasies— Ruskin

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what I learned of mathematics and science has been ... of great intrinsic value, as affording subjects of contemplation and reflection, and touchstones of truth in a deceitful world. This is, of course, in part a personal idiosyncrasy— Russell

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Analogous words: *deviation, aberration, divergence: peculiarity, oddity, queerness, singularity (see corresponding adjectives at STRANGE): freak, conceit, vagary, crotchet, *caprice, fancy, whim, whimsy