Paranormal

How to spell paranormal

10 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce paranormal

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does paranormal mean?

1. adjectiveDescribing events or phenomena that appear to lie beyond the scope of normal scientific understanding, such as ghosts or telepathy.

Paranormal in a sentence

• The documentary investigated claims of paranormal activity in the old hotel.

• She writes novels filled with ghosts and other paranormal encounters.

Where does paranormal come from?

Language of origin: Greek

This word joins two very different ancestors. The first part, para-, comes from Greek and means 'beside', 'alongside', or 'beyond'; it is the same element found in 'parallel' and 'paradox'. The second part traces to the Latin norma, which literally meant a carpenter's square, the tool used to make a true right angle, and from there came to mean a rule or standard; the adjective normalis described something built 'according to rule'. English assembled 'paranormal' relatively recently, in the late nineteenth century, when interest in spiritualism and psychic research was at its height, to label phenomena lying beyond the range of normal scientific explanation. The handy memory hook is that it is simply 'para' attached to the familiar word 'normal', so once you can spell 'normal' the rest is just the prefix.

How the word is built

• para- (beyond, beside)
• norm (rule, standard)
• -al (adjective suffix)