aberrant

American  

[uh-ber-uhnt, ab-er-] / əˈbɛr ənt, ˈæb ər- /

adjective

1. departing from the right, normal, or usual course.

   Synonyms:

   wandering

2. deviating from the ordinary, usual, or normal type; exceptional; abnormal.

   Synonyms:

   unusual, divergent

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noun

1. an aberrant person, thing, group, etc.

aberrant British  

/ æˈbɛrənt /

adjective

1. deviating from the normal or usual type, as certain animals from the group in which they are classified

2. behaving in an abnormal or untypical way

3. deviating from truth, morality, etc

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Other Word Forms

• aberrance noun
• aberrancy noun
• aberrantly adverb

Etymology

Origin of aberrant

First recorded in 1820–30, aberrant is from the Latin word aberrant- (stem of aberrāns, present participle of aberrāre to deviate). See ab-, errant

Example Sentences

Lombardy's Lega party president, Attilio Fontana, said a guilty verdict would be "so aberrant, even from a judicial point of view, that I don't even want to think about it".

From BBC • Dec. 19, 2024

He was detached from reality—in a manner that was even more extreme than his normally aberrant standards.

From Salon • Aug. 13, 2024

He hoped doing so might help him improve treatments for cardiac arrhythmias — aberrant rhythms of the heart — that can prove dangerous and even deadly.

From Los Angeles Times • May 20, 2024

To confirm that these glycan-associated disruptions were causal rather than merely correlative, the research team engineered HIV-specific antibodies designed to exhibit the same kind of aberrant IgG glycan modifications observed in PLWH.

From Science Daily • Apr. 10, 2024

The basset-hound data, Bateson argued, was either aberrant or inaccurate.

From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee

Related Words

• abnormal