anomalyn.
/əˈnɒml̩i/, U.S. /əˈnɑməli/ 1. Grammar. An exception to the prevailing linguistic system; a word that does not conform to the usual rules of inflection, sentence structure, etc. Also as a mass noun: irregularity within the prevailing linguistic system.
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the mind > language > linguistics > study of grammar > morphology > inflection > [noun] > inflectional irregularity
anomaly1585
defectivation1949
1585 tr. P. de La Ramée Lat. Gram. i. vii. 23 The anomaly of number. Nounes that are seldome used in one of the numbers, as in the plurall.
1612 J. Brinsley Ludus Lit. xx. 224 Most exceptions or Anomalies may bee learned after.
1741 I. Watts Improvem. Mind i. vii. 105 Let but few of the Anomalies or Irregularities of the Tongue be taught..to young Beginners.
1796 Analyt. Rev. Jan. 51 The affectation of anomaly in the construction of his sentences.
1874 J. S. Blackie On Self-culture 34 Some anomalies, as in the conjugation of a few irregular verbs.
1984 Language 60 759 Single nouns also show cases of anomaly resulting from absence of a determiner... These mononomials also usually have some ‘formulaic’ flavor.
2010 T. Alkire & C. Rosen Romance Langs. viii. 200 Three endings depart from the normal second and first declensions..and these three anomalies encountered some resistance in Popular Latin.
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1591 T. Digges L. Digges's Geom. Pract. Treatize: Pantometria (rev. ed.) 178 The excesse wherby the Semidiameter of the Ringe or Cornice of the Head dooth exceed the Cornice of the Coyle [of cannon] I call the Anomalye.
3. Astronomy and Astronautics. The angular distance of an orbiting celestial object or (in later use also) an artificial satellite from one of its apsides or (occasionally) from any point on its orbit. See also anomalistic adj. 1.Now chiefly with preceding adjective denoting particular versions of this parameter, as eccentric anomaly, mean anomaly, and true anomaly (see the first element).
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the world > the universe > planet > position of planet > [noun] > by distance
anomaly1602
coequate anomaly1676
curtate distance1676
1602 T. Blundeville Theoriques Seven Planets 18 This yearely Inequalitie is called the Inequalitie or Anomalie of the excentrique.
1706 Phillips's New World of Words (new ed.) Anomaly of the Orbit is the Arch, or Distance of a Planet from its Aphelion.
1868 Chambers's Encycl. I. 280 The anomaly was formerly measured from the aphelion; but from the fact that the aphelia of most of the comets lie beyond the range of observation, the perihelion is now taken as the point of departure for all planetary bodies.
1999 T. S. Jacobsen Planetary Syst. Anc. Greeks to Kepler vii. 206 The sum of distances from the Sun computed for each degree of anomaly.
4. gen.
a. An irregular fact, characteristic, or circumstance; an oddity, an outlier; an anomalous person or thing.
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1631 W. Twisse Discov. D. Iacksons Vanitie ii. vi. 219 Sometimes it falleth out, that the faster we ride, the later we come to our journeys ende... I had not thought such anomalies and irregularities could have bene devised in the heavens.
1646 Sir T. Browne Pseudodoxia Epidemica 135 They confound the generation of perfect animalls with imperfect..and erect anomalies, disturbing the lawes of Nature. View more context for this quotation
1753 C. O'Conor Diss. Hist. Ireland p. xxxix Mere local judgments and political anomalies..absolutely perversive of national happiness.
1859 Harper's Mag. Feb. 356/2 Was I an anomaly among my sex?
1859 C. Darwin Origin of Species v. 134 There is no greater anomaly in nature than a bird that cannot fly.
1937 D. L. Sayers Busman's Honeymoon vii. 157 The house presented no anomalies nor incongruities of any kind that I was able to observe.
2010 N.Y. Rev. Bks. 10 June 8/2 Fisher was an anomaly in the Royal Navy, a technical expert who had risen to the rank of First Sea Lord.
2016 Hindustan Times (Nexis) 22 Apr. What we are seeing at the moment is nothing more a statistical anomaly, which will even out as the tournament progresses.
b. Irregularity; exceptional or atypical character or quality; deviation from what is standard, normal, or expected.
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the world > relative properties > order > disorder > irregularity > [noun]
irregularship1577
irregularity1598
irregularness1609
irregulacy1645
anomaly1648
abnormity1724
1648 J. Goodwin Νεοϕυτοπρεσβυτερος 30 He..denies my conclusion, and votes it for an error destructive to the foundation of Religion. It is like the bent and figure of the fifth rib of his Religion, required the Anomalie of these proceedings at his hand.
1664 H. Power Exper. Philos. i. 78 To admire Nature's Anomaly..in the number of Eyes, which she has given to several Animals.
1818 H. Hallam View Europe Middle Ages II. vii. 74 Time changes anomaly into system.
1823 Spirit of Public Jrnls. 523 But this is the age of anomaly and newfangledness.
1944 A. B. Kuhn Who is this King of Glory? xiii. 307 But still it is the height of anomaly to assume that any true goal of human aspiration is to be striven for only half way.
a1986 D. Kalstone Becoming Poet (1989) i. iii. 73 For her one of the secrets of vitality is a language..open to and unembarrassed by anomaly.
5.
a. An irregularity or unexpected variation of the state, motion, or properties of a natural object or system; an exceptional or abnormal value of a physical property.magnetic anomaly: see the first element.
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the world > relative properties > relationship > variety > [noun] > variety of form or non-uniformity
deformitya1544
difformity1580
inequability1581
disformity1600
irregularness1609
inconstancy1613
inconformity1625
inequality1626
irregularity1646
nonconformity1672
anomaly1686
disuniformity1710
ununiformness1716
ununiformity1749
heteromorphism1839
non-uniformity1852
raggedness1882
1686 R. Boyle Free Enq. Notion Nature 149 I shall not..mention those Grand Anomalies, or Exorbitances, even in the vaster Bodies of the Universe; such as Earth-quakes.
1790 Philos. Trans. (Royal Soc.) 81 7 The steadiest hygroscopic substances are subject to anomalies.
1837 W. Whewell Hist. Inductive Sci. I. iii. ii. 175 The motions of the sun and moon..had other anomalies or irregularities.
1914 Prof. Papers U.S. Geol. Surv. No. 85. 36 Additional anomalies of density are not confined to the crustal region.
2001 B. Peucker-Ehrenbrink in B. Peucker-Ehrenbrink & B. Schmitz Accretion Extraterrestrial Matter throughout Earth's Hist. x. 166 Large impact events impart a geochemical anomaly to marine sediments.
b. Meteorology. More fully temperature anomaly. The degree to which the average temperature at a place differs from the temperature expected for its geographical position, or from a reference value based on past observations.
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the world > the earth > weather and the atmosphere > weather > [noun] > prevailing weather or climate > difference of actual from normal temperature
anomaly1853
1853 E. J. Sabine tr. H. W. Dove Distribution Heat 20 We require..to exhibit the relation of the actual temperature of each place to the mean or normal temperature of its geographical latitude. I call the difference between the actual and normal temperature the ‘thermic anomaly’.
1922 W. G. Kendrew Climates of Continents i. i. 3 The ‘anomaly of temperature’ for that place, a positive anomaly if the place is warmer than the mean, a negative anomaly if it is colder.
2017 Independent (Nexis) 20 July (Environment section) In France and Western Europe, the 2003 summer is the warmest on record, with seasonal mean temperature anomalies of about plus 3.2C on average over France.
c. Geology. The difference between the observed acceleration due to gravity at a point on the surface of the earth (or another planet) and the expected value; = gravity anomaly n. at gravity n. Compounds 2.
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the world > matter > physics > mechanics > force > gravity > [noun] > local departure from normal
anomaly1894
1894 Publ. Astron. Soc. Pacific 6 58 These anomalies of gravity have been attributed either to corresponding anomalies in the figure of the Earth, or to the insufficiency of the formulæ for reducing to sea level, [etc.].
1912 J. F. Hayford & W. Bowie Effect of Topogr. & Isostatic Compensation upon Intensity of Gravity 75 Accordingly, in the following tables the quantities called ‘Anomaly, new method’, are (g–gc) + 0.007 dyne. These are, therefore, the anomalies in gravity as given by the new reduction and referred to the following formula for the theoretical value of gravity at sea level.
1924 H. Jeffreys Earth 121 This anomaly is always negative. In other words, the gravity on a mountain top is less than elsewhere.
2000 A. E. Mussett & M. A. Khan Looking into Earth xxvii. 425/1 The principal feature is a central negative anomaly, but there are others..; these are due to the regularly spaced houses.
6. Music. A deviation from a perfect or just interval in the tuning of an instrument to the diatonic scale. rare.
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1694 W. Holder Treat. Harmony vii. 175 Those Anomalies, or Irregular Intervals, which are produced by Changing the Key.
1808 Edinb. Encycl. (1830) II. 168/1 Anomalies, in Music, are those small deviations from the perfections of the intervals on instruments with fixed notes, called temperaments, which necessarily arise from the use of too small a number of intervals in an octave, as twelve in the common system.
1905 L. C. Elson Music Dict. 18/1 Anomalies, false scales or intervals which are found in keyed instruments; they are so-called because incapable of being perfectly tempered.
1994 M. Chanan Musica Practica vii. 181 The prime integers known to the Greeks did not quite match the acoustical facts, which instead produced the anomaly called the syntonic comma. Because of this anomaly and the way it accumulates within the system a problem emerges in the business of tuning the instrument.
7. Medicine. An abnormality of the structure or function of a part of the body, esp. one of developmental or genetic origin. Frequently with distinguishing word, as congenital anomaly, genetic anomaly, etc.
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1814 Medico-chirurg. Trans. 5 173 A considerable anomaly in the form or structure of a particular organ is often called by anatomists a monstrous formation.
1896 Amer. Ann. Deaf June 234 What is transmitted is not really deafness, but some physical anomaly or tendency to disease of which deafness is but the consequence or the symptom.
1907 J. Bland-Sutton Gall-stones & Dis. Bile-ducts iii. 36 This is a rare anomaly and consists..in the obliteration of the main excretory ducts of the liver and sometimes the gall-bladder.
1967 Jrnl. Pediatrics 70 750/1 Advanced maternal age..is associated with..increased incidence of certain congenital anomalies such as hydrocephalus and congenital heart disease.
1988 TV-TS Tapestry Issue 51. 55/2 No two individuals are the same, there are physical differences such as hermaphrodites and those who have chromosomal anomalies.
2016 Guardian (Nexis) 19 July A bill he signed in March..went further, banning abortion in cases where the fetus has a severe genetic anomaly.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, June 2022).
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