Anomaly

How to spell anomaly

7 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce anomaly

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does anomaly mean?

1. nounSomething that deviates from what is standard, normal, or expected.

Anomaly in a sentence

• The auditor flagged a single anomaly in the monthly accounts.

• A sudden spike in temperature was the only anomaly in the otherwise steady data.

Where does anomaly come from?

Language of origin: Greek

The word travels back to the Greek anomalos, meaning 'uneven' or 'irregular', which was formed from the negative prefix an- ('not') and homalos ('even' or 'level'); homalos in turn grew from homos, meaning 'same'. So at its core an anomaly is literally something 'not the same' as the smooth, expected pattern around it. Greek passed the noun anomalia to Latin as anomalia, and English picked it up in the late 1500s, at first largely in astronomy and grammar to describe departures from a regular rule. Notice that the spelling keeps a single 'm' and an unstressed schwa before the 'l', which is exactly where writers stumble, since the middle 'a' is barely pronounced. The same homos root for 'same' also lies behind familiar words such as 'homogeneous' and 'homonym', which can help you remember why the negative an- at the front is doing such heavy lifting.

How the word is built

• an- (not)
• (h)omal- (from Greek homalos: even, level)
• -y (noun suffix)