Word of the Day

Friday, July 30, 1999

aberrant

\a-BERR-unt; AB-ur-unt\ , adjective;

Markedly different from an accepted norm; Deviating from the ordinary or natural type; abnormal.

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Quotes:

The impulse toward individual expression is a recent and a possibly aberrant one in art.

-- Nicholas Delbanco, "From Echoes Emerge Original Voices", New York Times, June 21, 1999

These characters are so wild and aberrant they are close to appearing lunatics.

-- Bosley Crowther, "Who's Afraid of Audacity?", New York Times, July 10, 1966

But I could never accept the aberrant dictates of socialist realism which ruled out all mystery and turned literary activity into a propaganda exercise.

-- Mario Vargas Llosa, Making Waves

Origin:

That which is aberrant is literally that which "wanders away from" what is accepted, ordinary, normal, natural, etc., aberrant being from Latin aberro, aberrare, to wander off, to lose one's way, from ab, away from + erro, errare, to wander.