especially: a person who differs markedly (as in social adjustment or behavior) from what is considered normal or acceptable
social/moral/sexual deviants
Those who commit crimes also watch TV, go to the grocery store, and have their hair cut. Thus, while our stereotypes may suggest that there is a wide gulf between deviants and conventional people …, the behavior of deviants is often very conventional. Paul C. Higgins and Richard R. Butler
The theory thus centers on the question: What are the processes through which people are assigned a social identity as deviants by others and enter upon ongoing careers as deviants? Mary Beth Norton et al.
Acts of punishment thus designate who is in our community by clearly defining who is not in our community. Social solidarity is purchased through the punishment of deviants. Mark Colvin
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Deviant & Deviate
Deviant and deviate share a common root (the Latin deviare “to wander off the road, swerve, deviate”) and have some similarities in meaning, but they differ in notable ways. Deviant has functioned in English as an adjective (since the 15th century) and as a noun (since the early 20th century), in each case with a sense that suggests a straying from an accepted norm or from what is considered standard behavior. In contrast to deviant’s socially prescriptive connotations, the verb deviate often implies a less judgmental sense of swerving from the usual way (as in “he never deviated from his routine of drinking coffee with breakfast.”)
Adjective a study of deviant behavior among criminals some studies show that many violent criminals begin exhibiting deviant behavior in early childhood
Recent Examples on the Web
Adjective
Only one person can torture Wednesday's deviant brother and that's Wednesday herself. Chaise Sanders, Country Living, 5 Sep. 2022 Our styles are often read in the U.S. as tacky, over the top, and deviant, even as they are simultaneously spectacularized, desired, and appropriated. Jillian Hernandez, refinery29.com, 17 Aug. 2022 When justice is sought in the wake of a scam, skepticism is positioned as the norm, while gullibility is treated as a maladaptive, pathological, deviant form of socioeconomic being. Hannah Zeavin, Harper’s Magazine , 22 June 2022 This isn’t to say that all men engage in these behaviors – or that booking relatively late is a sign of deviant behavior. Javier D. Donna, The Conversation, 17 Feb. 2022 But these days, no matter how deviant or morally abhorrent their beliefs, people have no trouble finding soulmates on 4chan, 8chan or Telegram. Arie Kruglanski, The Conversation, 19 May 2022 Such mastery of capitalist subjecthood feels unexpected from a group so often portrayed as socially deviant.New York Times, 10 May 2022 When actual deviants are in short supply, Moynihan argued, the quota gets filled by reclassifying normal behaviors as deviant. Timothy Noah, The New Republic, 6 Apr. 2022 Thatcher’s government has just passed a law that stereotypes lesbians and gays as paedophiles, recruiting children for their ‘deviant’ lifestyles. Alex Ritman, The Hollywood Reporter, 4 May 2022
Noun
Phoenix’s Joker was a real deviant; Rogowski makes Hans a dissatisfied lover and nonconforming irredeemable — countering the millennium’s anodyne Buttigieg progressive. Armond White, National Review, 11 Mar. 2022 This depiction of Biden as a lovable deviant helped shape public perception of the real-life Biden as someone fun and relatable. Elahe Izadi, Washington Post, 9 Mar. 2020 Similarly, unmarried men were deemed narcissistic, deviant, and pathological. T.l. Andrews, Quartz, 21 Dec. 2019 There is a long tradition in theatre of casting men as women who are older, stricter, meaner, fatter, louder — in other words, deviant. Mia J. Merrill, sun-sentinel.com, 20 Nov. 2019 But then again, I and my family were not libeled as traitors, crooks, deviants, and imbeciles, and put in legal jeopardy for 22 months as the media and ex-Obama officials ginned up hoax after hoax. Victor Davis Hanson, National Review, 27 Aug. 2019 Kosek said the fire-suppression campaign reflects a belief, deeply rooted in the Forest Service’s history, that people who set fires in forests are deviants and evildoers. Wendy Melillo, The Conversation, 19 July 2019 The process of catching cheaters in video games is muddled in secrecy: the more developers say, the better equipped deviants are to cheat more efficiently next time around. Patricia Hernandez, The Verge, 24 Oct. 2018 The streets of his New York are filled with rubble, leftover from a civil war between militant Christians and social deviants. Adi Robertson, The Verge, 2 Dec. 2018 See More