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
David Fear, Rolling Stone, 27 Jan. 2025
His background as an actor in such deviant films as Mysterious Skin, Funny Games, and Melancholia surfaces in how The Brutalist evokes an apocalyptic worldview.
—Armond White, National Review, 3 Jan. 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 deviants trying to lure them into statutory rape, however, were real.
—David Fear, Rolling Stone, 27 Jan. 2025
His background as an actor in such deviant films as Mysterious Skin, Funny Games, and Melancholia surfaces in how The Brutalist evokes an apocalyptic worldview.
—Armond White, National Review, 3 Jan. 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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Further reading: Trump wants to end this GOP maverick’s political career.—
Emily Brooks,
The Hill,
13 Mar. 2025
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Since the Second World War, the United States has exercised de-facto military control over Greenland, thanks to the maverick diplomat Henrik Kauffmann, who, as Denmark’s envoy to Washington in 1941, granted the U.S. control over its security.—
Louise Bokkenheuser,
The New Yorker,
11 Mar. 2025
Adjective
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While some can be used across different hair textures, lengths, curl patterns, thicknesses, colors (natural and unnatural), and concerns, many are created with specific consumers and their needs in mind.—
Jailynn Taylor,
Allure,
5 Apr. 2025
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The body can also adapt to constant stress by staying in a heightened state of alertness, making peace feel unnatural.—
Mark Travers,
Forbes.com,
2 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 14 Apr. 2025.
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