abnormal

Not conforming to rule or system; deviating from the usual or normal type.

Adjective

  1. Not conforming to rule or system; deviating from the usual or normal type.
    • And then after an abnormal meal, which was either a very late breakfast or a very early lunch, they drove on to Victoria Station. - 1899, Arthur Conan Doyle, chapter 6, in A Duet:
    • Here perhaps one of you might interrupt me and say, 'But what is it that you do, Socrates? How is it that you have been misrepresented like this? Surely all this talk and gossip about you would never have arisen if you...
  2. Of or pertaining to that which is irregular, in particular, behaviour that deviates from norms of social propriety or accepted standards of mental health.
    • Furuseth was right; I was abnormal, an "emotionless monster," a strange bookish creature, capable of pleasuring in sensations only of the mind. - 1904, Jack London, chapter 23, in The Sea-Wolf (Macmillan’s Standard...
    • Many of the so-called rites of these secret societies were so patently ridiculous, that it is quite obvious that they were merely an excuse for men and women to indulge in sex-play and lustful gratification, frequently...

Origin

From ab- + normal. First attested in 1835, replacing the earlier anormal and even earlier abnormous, from Latin abnormis (“departing from normal”), from either ab- (“away from”) + norma (“rule, norm”), or Ancient Greek ἀνώμαλος (anṓmalos).

Forms

more abnormal most abnormal anormal abnormous

Synonyms

aberrant anomalous atypical exceptional extraordinary irregular preternatural strange unusual

Derived

abend abnormalcy abnormal hieratic abnormalise abnormalism abnormalist abnormality abnormalization abnormalize abnormally abnormalness abnormal psychology abnormie abnormity haploabnormal nonabnormal superabnormal

Noun

  1. A person or object that is not normal.

Forms

abnormals anormal abnormous