ANOMALOUS

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does anomalous mean? 

• ANOMALOUS (adjective)
  The adjective ANOMALOUS has 1 sense:

1. deviating from the general or common order or type

  Familiarity information: ANOMALOUS used as an adjective is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• ANOMALOUS (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Deviating from the general or common order or type

Context example:

advanced forms of life may be anomalous in the universe

Similar:

abnormal; unnatural (not normal; not typical or usual or regular or conforming to a norm)

Derivation:

anomalousness (deviation from the normal or common order or form or rule)

anomaly (a person who is unusual)

anomaly (deviation from the normal or common order or form or rule)

 Context examples 

This anomalous behaviour was detected by a worldwide astronomical collaboration including ESO’s Very Large Telescope in Chile.

(ESO’s VLT Sees `Oumuamua Getting a Boost, ESO)

After painstaking measurements from multiple instruments at ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), the team led by Tom Seccull of Queen’s University Belfast in the UK was able to measure the composition of the anomalous Kuiper Belt Object 2004 EW95, and thus determine that it is a carbonaceous asteroid.

(Exiled Asteroid Discovered in Outer Reaches of Solar System, ESO)

Besides that Mr. Quinion did what a careless man so occupied, and dealing with a thing so anomalous, could, to treat me as one upon a different footing from the rest, I never said, to man or boy, how it was that I came to be there, or gave the least indication of being sorry that I was there.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)