deviance.

1. Behaviour that departs from accepted social rules or expectations.

2. A statistical measure of how a model's fit compares with a specified reference model.

Use it for

Words that belong together

• social deviance
• define deviance

On the page

The study examined who had the power to define deviance.

Usage notes

Primary category: academic / formal. Forms: Usually uncountable; no ordinary plural in this sense. Legacy lexical fields mirror sense 1 only. Use numbered sense fields for all meanings. Established modern English lexical item. No separate regional spelling or grammatical inflection entry. Commonness: moderately common.