- irregular
- irregular, anomalous, unnatural mean outside the sphere of what conforms to or is explainable by law, rule, custom, or principle.Irregular implies failure to conform to a rule, a law, or a pattern, especially to one imposed for the sake of uniformity in method, practice, or conduct; thus, an irregular marriage is one that does not conform to the regulations of church or state; an irregular verse does not correspond to an accepted metrical pattern for its type; guerrilla warfare is called irregular because it does not accord with the practice of civilized nations or conventional military theory; irregular conduct may or may not be morally reprehensible, but it defies the code or standard of the community or class{
there are always irregular fluctuations of the seasonal weather— Ellis
}{made a strong appeal for the highest standards of medical education in an effort to combat irregular practitioners— Viets
}{the chicanery was gross, the forgery patent, the procedure irregular and illegal— Woodward
}Anomalous stresses lack of conformity to what might be expected of a thing because of the class or type to which it belongs, the laws which govern its existence, or the environment in which it is found{all seven of us . . . appeared on the show under pseudonyms. Which may sound highly anomalous, considering that we're the children of vaude-villians, a sect not usually antipathetic to publicity— Sal-inger
}Sometimes it specifically implies inconsistency or a conflict of principles{acts so anomalous, in such startling contradiction to all our usual ways and accepted notions of life and its value— L. P. Smith
}and sometimes it specifically means unclassifiable or indefinable{anomalous literary works such as Holmes's Autocrat of the Breakfast Table
}{anomalous emotions
}Again, it suggests the absence of the character or of the characteristics essential to a thing of its kind{a few judges find in her last book new support for the anomalous opinion that its author was a great artist, but insignificant— Beck
}or it suggests a contradiction between the professed aims or intentions of a person or institution and the conditions in which that person or institution exists or finds himself or itself at a given time{the anomalous position of the free Negro in the slave states— E. T. Price
}{President Wilson found himself in an anomalous position when Congress rejected his proposal that the United States enter the League of Nations
}Unnatural is the strongest of these words in its implication of censure, especially when it implies a violation of natural law or of principles accepted by all civilized men as based on reason and essential to the well-being of society. In such cases it often specifically connotes moral perversion{an unnatural practice
}{she had been vicious and unnatural; she had thriven on hatred—5. S. Van Dine
}or abnormal indifference or cruelty{an unnatural parent
}Sometimes the word merely means contrary to what is received as natural, either because it is not in accordance with the normal course of nature{snow in May is unnatural in this region
}or because it is not in keeping with what one regards as normal, balanced, proper, or fitting under the circumstances{an unnatural appetite for acid foods
}{a poetic language which appears natural to one age will appear unnatural or artificial to another—Day Lewis
}{thy deed, inhuman and unnatural provokes this deluge most unnatural—Shak.
}{a daughter who left her father was an unnatural daughter; her womanhood was suspect— Woolf
}Analogous words: aberrant, *abnormal, atypical: *exceptional: singular, unique, *strange, peculiar, odd, queerAntonyms: regular
New Dictionary of Synonyms. 2014.
