normal

Definition

According to norms or rules or to a regular pattern.

Etymology

From Latin normālis (“made according to a carpenter's square; later: according to a rule”), from nōrma (“carpenter's square”), of uncertain origin; doublet of normale. The earliest meaning of the word in English was "perpendicular; forming a right angle" like something normālis (“made according to a carpenter's square”), but by Late Latin normālis had also come to mean "according to a rule", from which modern English senses of the word derive: in the 1800s, as people began to quantitatively study things like height, weight and blood pressure, the usual or most common values came to be called "normal", and by extension values regarded as healthy or desirable came to be called "normal" regardless of their usuality.

Example Sentences

• "Organize the data into third normal form."
• "2007, Steven Wilson, "Normal", Porcupine Tree, Nil Recurring. Prescription drugs, they help me through the day And that restraining order keeps me well at bay And what's normal now, anyway?"
• "In other words, although the legal processes were observed, it was not a normal transfer of power within each of the ruling communist parties. […] Demonstrations of the sort that brought about the collapse of the communist regimes in Eastern Europe were not normal, and where attempts had previously been made to hold them, they were invariably suppressed by force."

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