deviant
Americanadjective
noun
adjective
noun
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of deviant
First recorded in 1350–1400; Middle English, from Late Latin dēviant-, stem of dēviāns “straying,” present participle of dēviāre “to stray, turn from the road”; see deviate
Explanation
A deviant is someone whose behavior falls far outside of society's norms; as an adjective, deviant can describe the behavior itself. For example, a fifty-year-old punk rocker has a deviant appearance, compared to his peers. That aging punk deviates, or departs from the norm, of people his age. Both deviant and deviate come from the Latin word deviare, meaning "to turn out of the way." Deviants experience this turning away from society, either by choice, or in the case of someone who has harmed another, perhaps by sexual abuse, by being cast out by people who want nothing to do with them.
Vocabulary lists containing deviant
Latin Love, Vol I: via
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The Field Guide to the North American Teenager
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Little Brother
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Once a slur that implied homosexuality was shamefully deviant, “queer” was “reclaimed” in the 1980s by gay activists as a synonym for “gay.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 2, 2026
That gave people an excuse to start pulling the masks down and indulging in the deviant behaviors often celebrated by drill rappers.
From Washington Times ● Oct. 10, 2023
We could call it a moral panic, a widespread and often unfounded fear about some deviant or alien entity in society.
From Seattle Times ● Apr. 21, 2023
Freud, Bertolt Brecht, Karl Marx, Franz Kafka and hundreds of modernist or expressionist artists were deemed decedent, depraved, deviant and degenerate.
From Salon ● Jan. 26, 2023
Another deviant, already tried and found guilty, was ready to be exiled from Earth and imprisoned on one of the Penal Asteroids.
From The Penal Cluster by Garrett, Randall
The aberrant child vampire highlights inequality, a deviant even among deviants.
From Salon ● Oct. 30, 2022
From 1956 to 1965, a legislative committee led by state Sen. Charley Johns scoured Florida campuses looking for what he saw as deviants and promoters of racial integration.
From Washington Post ● Aug. 18, 2022
He had grown up in India but was studying sociology in London and had been awarded a grant to research political "deviants".
From BBC ● Jun. 30, 2022
Do you really expect teachers and other school workers to keep their eyes simultaneously trained on COVID-19 deviants and TikTok deviants?
From Washington Times ● Oct. 13, 2021
I can understand why things are so strict here, because it is the best school around for the rich deviants of tomorrow.
From "Winger" by Andrew Smith
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
