as in abnormal
departing from some accepted standard of what is normal
some studies show that many violent criminals begin exhibiting deviant behavior in early childhood
Synonyms & Similar Words
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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
as in maverick
a person who does not conform to generally accepted standards or customs
branded as social deviants by a society that did not value self-expression
Synonyms & Similar Words
Antonyms & Near Antonyms
Example Sentences
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Recent Examples of deviant
Christopher R. Browning, The New York Review of Books, 1 Dec. 2022
The Florida bill’s opponents are worried about a world in which teachers have no meaningful way to discuss the real world inhabited by their students, which risks leaving students with the impression that non-straight or non-gender-conforming individuals are somehow deviant.
—Washington Post, 12 Apr. 2022
Ingrid Wickelgren, Scientific American, 14 Feb. 2025
Over the course of the book, Perry builds her case for how Black people have always functioned as blue notes—often seen as out of place or deviant but also known to wrest mellifluousness from cacophony and escape the binds that have been violently placed upon them.
—Omari Weekes, The Atlantic, 13 Feb. 2025
See All Example Sentences for deviant
Adjective
Jähner does not comment on no one seeming to have drawn the lesson that the anti-Semitic stereotype of dishonest and deviant economic behavior that Germans had long identified as a Jewish racial characteristic had turned out to be situationally, not racially, caused.
—Christopher R. Browning, The New York Review of Books, 1 Dec. 2022
The Florida bill’s opponents are worried about a world in which teachers have no meaningful way to discuss the real world inhabited by their students, which risks leaving students with the impression that non-straight or non-gender-conforming individuals are somehow deviant.
—Washington Post, 12 Apr. 2022
Noun
The ballooning army of deviant cells may invade nearby tissues, damaging them and causing symptoms.
—Ingrid Wickelgren, Scientific American, 14 Feb. 2025
Over the course of the book, Perry builds her case for how Black people have always functioned as blue notes—often seen as out of place or deviant but also known to wrest mellifluousness from cacophony and escape the binds that have been violently placed upon them.
—Omari Weekes, The Atlantic, 13 Feb. 2025
See All Example Sentences for deviant
Recent Examples of Synonyms for deviant
Adjective
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Symptoms of the condition can include shortness of breath, a sudden drop in blood pressure, an abnormal heart rate, and bleeding from the uterus, C-section, or IV sites.—
Korin Miller,
SELF,
8 Apr. 2025
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Tau tangles are also implicated in other neurological diseases such as frontal lobe dementia, or FTD, and Lewy body dementia in which abnormal clumps of a protein called alpha-synuclein accumulate in the brain’s neurons.—
Sandee LaMotte,
CNN Money,
7 Apr. 2025
Noun
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At one point, that must have seemed like a sweet validation for Navarro, a maverick among prominent economists despite his Harvard Ph.D.—
Niall Stanage,
The Hill,
11 Apr. 2025
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So naturally, the series went in a totally different direction with the new boss, introducing him as a maverick who runs into danger and a chief whose leadership style is a far cry from Boden’s strong but kind-hearted approach.—
Vlada Gelman,
TVLine,
11 Apr. 2025
Adjective
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In an alternative '90s, dark waters from the underground scientific facility have risen to flood the town and deliver a menagerie of natural and unnatural nightmares.—
Jeff Spry,
Space.com,
11 Apr. 2025
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In this type of thinking, the desire to be alone is seen as unnatural and unhealthy, something to be pitied or feared rather than valued or encouraged.—
Virginia Thomas,
The Conversation,
4 Apr. 2025
Noun
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Robert Redford delivers folksy wisdom as a local eccentric who once had his own dragon encounter, and even Karl Urban’s greedy logger is more of a nuisance than an outright villain.—
Josh Bell,
Vulture,
21 Mar. 2025
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Attracting talent for greater innovation hazards acquiring a few eccentrics whose gifts come wrapped in controversial packaging.—
Chip Bell,
Forbes,
15 Mar. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Deviant.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/deviant. Accessed 25 Apr. 2025.
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