Definitions

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun an aberrant state or condition.
  • noun deviate behavior.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun sociology Actions or behaviors that violate formal and informal cultural norms such as law and the discouragement from public nose-picking.
  • noun A person or thing that differs from the expected.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a state or condition markedly different from the norm
  • noun deviate behavior

Etymologies

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Examples

  • We cannot imagine a difference in which all deviance is equally valued.

    Archive 2010-05-01 2010

  • In such a mentality, “wrongness” is understood as transgression, which is understood as deviance from the “natural order”, which is understood in terms of the received wisdom of norms-as-law.

    Bukiet on Brooklyn Books Hal Duncan 2009

  • And we have yet to learn the full scope of that deviance from the constitution and the founders express desire to have divided government and shared power amongst 3 branches.

    Matthew Yglesias » The New Federalism 2009

  • Would that mean proportionality could only be achieved if 15% of the PCs were woman and 5% of those from that particular belief group (perhaps with a margin of acceptable deviance from the mean/median/mode – which average are we using by the way?)

    I’m Here For An Argument. No You’re Not! Yes I am! « POLICE INSPECTOR BLOG Inspector Gadget 2010

  • Even if one becomes homosexual through a gradual development of sexual tastes, the deviance is no more "unnatural" than if one develops a taste for bletted medlars and a dislike for apples.

    Archive 2009-08-01 Hal Duncan 2009

  • We cannot imagine a difference in which all deviance is equally valued.

    "American Able" and The Beauty Way 2010

  • Even if one becomes homosexual through a gradual development of sexual tastes, the deviance is no more "unnatural" than if one develops a taste for bletted medlars and a dislike for apples.

    An Open Letter to John C. Wright Hal Duncan 2009

  • Hence, magic became part of a growing "underworld" of unorthodox practices, such as necromancy, witchcraft, and heresy -- all forms of deviance from a norm now asserting itself in greater clarity than ever before.

    What Is Magic? 2008

  • Hence, magic became part of a growing "underworld" of unorthodox practices, such as necromancy, witchcraft, and heresy -- all forms of deviance from a norm now asserting itself in greater clarity than ever before.

    Archive 2008-04-01 2008

  • Yet they fixate on their differences with us, and they are faithful, sometimes gleeful, chroniclers of every American deviance from the Jacksonian creed, such as our growing economic inequality and the corruption of our political system by big money.

    Misfit America 2006

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