Normal

¹ American  

[nawr-muhl] / ˈnɔr məl /

noun

1. a city in central Illinois.

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normal ² American  

[nawr-muhl] / ˈnɔr məl /

adjective

1. conforming to the standard or the common type; usual; not abnormal; regular; natural.

2. serving to establish a standard.

3. Psychology.

   1. approximately average in any psychological trait, as intelligence, personality, or emotional adjustment.

   2. free from any mental disorder; sane.

4. Biology, Medicine/Medical.

   1. free from any infection or other form of disease or malformation, or from experimental therapy or manipulation.

   2. of natural occurrence.

5. Mathematics.

   1. being at right angles, as a line; perpendicular.

   2. of the nature of or relating to a mathematical normal.

   3. (of an orthogonal system of real functions) defined so that the integral of the square of the absolute value of any function is 1.

   4. (of a topological space) having the property that corresponding to every pair of disjoint closed sets are two disjoint open sets, each containing one of the closed sets.

   5. (of a set) having the property that the same set results when all the elements of the set are operated on consistently on the left and consistently on the right by any element of the set; invariant.

6. Chemistry.

   1. (of a solution) containing one equivalent weight of the constituent in question in one liter of solution.

   2. relating to an aliphatic hydrocarbon having a straight unbranched carbon chain, each carbon atom of which is joined to no more than two other carbon atoms.

   3. of or relating to a neutral salt in which any replaceable hydroxyl groups or hydrogen atoms have been replaced by other groups or atoms, as sodium sulfate, Na 2 SO 4 .

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noun

1. the standard or the common type.

2. the usual state, amount, level, etc., especially the average or mean.

   Production may fall below normal.

3. Mathematics.

   1. a perpendicular line or plane, especially one perpendicular to a tangent line of a curve, or a tangent plane of a surface, at the point of contact.

   2. the portion of this perpendicular line included between its point of contact with the curve and the x- axis.

normal British  

/ nɔːˈmælɪtɪ, ˈnɔːməl /

adjective

1. usual; regular; common; typical

   the normal way of doing it

   the normal level

2. constituting a standard

   if we take this as normal

3. psychol

   1. being within certain limits of intelligence, educational success or ability, etc

   2. conforming to the conventions of one's group

4. biology med (of laboratory animals) maintained in a natural state for purposes of comparison with animals treated with drugs, etc

5.  N.  chem (of a solution) containing a number of grams equal to the equivalent weight of the solute in each litre of solvent

6. chem denoting a straight-chain hydrocarbon: a normal alkane . Prefix: n-, e.g. n- octane

7. geometry another word for perpendicular

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noun

1. the usual, average, or typical state, degree, form, etc

2. anything that is normal

3. geometry a line or plane perpendicular to another line or plane or to the tangent of a curved line or plane at the point of contact

Other Word Forms

• antinormal adjective
• half-normal adjective
• hypernormal adjective
• nonnormal adjective
• normality noun
• normalness noun
• overnormal adjective
• quasi-normal adjective
• quasi-normally adverb
• seminormal adjective
• seminormally adverb
• unnormal adjective
• unnormally adverb

Etymology

Origin of normal

First recorded in 1520–30; from Latin normālis “made according to a carpenter's square,” equivalent to norm(a) ( norm ) + -ālis adjective suffix; -al ¹

Example Sentences

"I couldn't even imagine the scale of it. This isn't a normal case," says Marko Lepponen, the detective who led the investigation for the Finnish police.

From BBC

He is in solitary confinement in a smaller than normal cell.

From The Wall Street Journal

"To own a house, to own a car, to have a normal life. My salary lasts 10 days, and I have to borrow money to cover the rest of the month. It's very bad."

From BBC

“Life was relatively normal until about 8:00 in the evening on Thursday, when the internet was cut,” a doctor said in an account shared by the Center for Human Rights in Iran.

From The Wall Street Journal

While the penalty is waived for such former workers, the normal taxes must still be paid and there will be mandatory federal tax withholding of 20% on any distributions made.

From MarketWatch

Related Words

• natural
• orderly
• ordinary
• regular
• routine
• traditional
• typical