Word of the Day Archive
Sunday November 28, 1999
aberrant \a-BERR-unt; AB-ur-unt\ , adjective:
Markedly different from an accepted norm; Deviating from the ordinary or natural type; abnormal.
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
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.
Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for aberrant
