deviance

1. 1.

   a state or condition markedly different from the norm

   Synonymsaberranceaberrancyaberration

   Broaderabnormality

   Narrowerchromosomal aberrationdeflection
2. 2.

   deviate behavior

   Synonymsdeviation

   Broaderabnormality

Other forms of deviance

plural

deviances·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about deviance

What does deviance mean?

deviance means "a state or condition markedly different from the norm". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in deviance?

deviance has 3 syllables: de-vi-ance. The stress falls on "de". In IPA it is /ˈdiviəns/.

What is another word for deviance?

Close synonyms include aberrance, aberrancy, aberration, deviation. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is deviance a common word?

deviance is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.