nonstandard
Americanadjective
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not standard.
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not conforming in pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, etc., to the usage characteristic of and considered acceptable by most educated native speakers; lacking in social prestige or regionally or socially limited in use.
a nonstandard dialect; nonstandard English.
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Mathematics. of or relating to a generalized system of numbers that includes the real numbers but also includes infinite and infinitesimal numbers.
nonstandard analysis.
adjective
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denoting or characterized by idiom, vocabulary, etc, that is not regarded as correct and acceptable by educated native speakers of a language; not standard
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deviating from a given standard
Usage
A term labeled Nonstandard in this dictionary is one that is thought to be characteristic of the speech of persons with little education—a term that is often regarded as a marker of low social status.
Etymology
Origin of nonstandard
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.
The U.S. military is using nonstandard contracts and tasking defense contractors to design new weapons from scratch to cut years off production times and hundreds of millions of dollars off their cost.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 15, 2026
Laboratory experiments confirmed that PapB successfully created these ring structures, even when the peptides included nonstandard building blocks commonly used in modern incretin drugs.
From Science Daily ● Apr. 28, 2026
Some have more nonstandard options like gift cards or Amazon Pay.
From Salon ● Feb. 11, 2026
Anyone who pursues a nonstandard creative career in America and doesn’t have generational wealth or a rich spouse will likely hold at least two jobs.
From Slate ● Jan. 3, 2024
Double negatives, ain’t, and other nonstandard forms soon became stigmatized by their association with the less prestigious dialects of English used by its poorer and less educated speakers.
From "The Sense of Style" by Steven Pinker
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.
