Abnormalities

How to spell abnormalities

13 letters · 5 syllables

How to pronounce abnormalities

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does abnormalities mean?

1. nounFeatures, conditions, or results that differ from what is normal or expected.

Abnormalities in a sentence

• The blood tests revealed several abnormalities that needed further investigation.

• The auditor flagged a number of abnormalities in the company accounts.

Where does abnormalities come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin norma, which literally meant a carpenter's square, the tool used to test whether an angle was a true right angle. From that practical sense norma came to mean a rule or standard of correctness, and the prefix ab-, meaning 'away from', gave the idea of something departing from the expected standard. The Latin abnormis fed into the medieval Latin abnormalis, and English picked up 'abnormal' in the 1700s, layering on the noun-forming -ity to make 'abnormality' for the state or instance of being abnormal. The plural 'abnormalities' simply marks several such irregularities at once. The same norma root survives in the everyday word 'normal' and in 'enormous', which began as enormis, literally 'out of the standard', a useful reminder that the spelling hangs on that single core norm.

How the word is built

• ab- (away from)
• norm (from Latin norma: a rule or standard)
• -al (adjective)
• -ity (noun-forming suffix)
• -ies (plural)