deviate

English

Etymology

From Late Latin deviatus, past participle of deviare, from the phrase de via.

Pronunciation

Verb

• enPR: dē'vēāt
  • (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈdiː.vi.eɪt/

    • Audio (Southern England):

      (file)

  • (US) IPA^(key): /ˈdi.vi.eɪt/
  • (General Australian) IPA^(key): /ˈdiː.vi.æɪt/, [ˈdɪi.vi.æɪt]

Noun and Adjective

• enPR: dē'vēət
  • (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈdiː.vi.ət/

    • Audio (Southern England):

      (file)

  • (US) IPA^(key): /ˈdi.vi.ət/
  • (General Australian) IPA^(key): /ˈdiː.vi.ət/, [ˈdɪi.vi.ət]

Verb

deviate (third-person singular simple present deviates, present participle deviating, simple past and past participle deviated)

1. (intransitive) To go off course from; to change course; to change plans.
   • 1749, Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling:

     These two circumstances, however, happening both unfortunately to intervene, our travellers deviated into a much less frequented track; and after riding full six miles, instead of arriving at the stately spires of Coventry, they found themselves still in a very dirty lane, where they saw no symptoms of approaching the suburbs of a large city.

   • 1711 May, [Alexander Pope], An Essay on Criticism, London: […] W[illiam] Lewis […]; and sold by W[illiam] Taylor […], T[homas] Osborn[e] […], and J[ohn] Graves […], →OCLC:

     Thus Pegasus, a nearer way to take, / May boldly deviate from the common track.

2. (intransitive, figurative) To fall outside of, or part from, some norm; to stray.

   His exhibition of nude paintings deviated from the norm.

   • 2021 February 9, “The double-edged sword of movie stardom remains the same as it ever was: when a persona is so fixed in the public mind, it's what people love you for, and it becomes difficult to deviate from.”, in BBC‎^[1]:
3. (transitive) To cause to diverge.

Synonyms

• (change course): swerve, veer
• (stray): stray, wander

Derived terms

• deviative
• deviator
• deviatory
• nondeviating
• undeviating

 

Related terms

• deviant
• deviation

Translations

to go off course from; to change course; to change plans

• Armenian: շեղվել (hy) (šeġvel)
• Bulgarian: отклонявам се (otklonjavam se)
• Dutch: afwijken (nl)
• Finnish: poiketa (fi)
• French: dévier (fr)
• German: abweichen (de)
• Greek: παρεκκλίνω (el) (parekklíno)
• Hebrew: סטה (he) (satá), סָר (he) (sar)
• Hungarian: eltér (hu), elhajlik (hu), kitér (hu), letér (hu), tér (hu)
• Ido: deviacar (io)
• Latin: descisco
• Macedonian: застрани се n (zastrani se)
• Ottoman Turkish: دونمك (dönmek)
• Portuguese: desviar (pt)
• Romanian: devia (ro)
• Russian: отклоня́ться (ru) impf (otklonjátʹsja), отклони́ться (ru) pf (otklonítʹsja)
• Sanskrit: ह्वरति (sa) (hvarati)
• Spanish: desviarse (es)
• Tagalog: lumihis
• Tamil: கோணு (kōṇu)

to fall outside of, or part from, some norm; to stray

• Armenian: շեղվել (hy) (šeġvel)
• Bulgarian: отклонявам се (otklonjavam se)
• Danish: deviere
• Dutch: afwijken (nl)
• Finnish: poiketa (fi)
• German: abweichen (de)
• Hungarian: eltér (hu)
• Latin: descisco
• Ottoman Turkish: آزمق (azmak)
• Portuguese: desviar (pt)
• Romanian: devia (ro)
• Russian: отклоня́ться (ru) impf (otklonjátʹsja), отклони́ться (ru) pf (otklonítʹsja)
• Swedish: avvika (sv)

to cause to diverge

• Hungarian: eltérít (hu), elhajlít (hu)

Noun

deviate (plural deviates)

1. (sociology) A person with deviant behaviour; a deviant, degenerate or pervert.

   Synonyms: deviant, degenerate, pervert

   • 1915, James Cornelius Wilson, A Handbook of medical diagnosis‎^[2]:

     […] Walton has suggested that it is desirable "to name the phenomena signs of deviation, and call their possessors deviates or a deviate as the case may be […]

   • 1959, Leon Festinger, Stanley Schachter, Kurt W. Back, Social Pressures in Informal Groups: A Study of Human Factors in Housing‎^[3]:

     Under these conditions the person who appears as a deviate is a deviate only because we have chosen, somewhat arbitrarily, to call him a member of the court […]

   • 2001, Rupert Brown, Group Processes‎^[4]:

     […] The second confederate was also to be a deviate initially […]

2. (statistics) A value equal to the difference between a measured variable factor and a fixed or algorithmic reference value.
   • 1928, Karl J. Holzinger, Statistical Methods for Students in Education‎^[5]:

     It will be noted that for a deviate x = 1.5, the ordinate z will have the value .130 […]

   • 2001, Sanjeev B. Sarmukaddam, Indrayan Indrayan, Abhaya Indrayan, Medical Biostatistics‎^[6]:

     This difference is called a deviate. When a deviate is divided by its SD a, it is called a relative deviate or a standard deviate.

   • 2005, Michael J. Crawley, Statistics: An Introduction Using R‎^[7]:

     This is a deviate so the appropriate function is qt. We need to supply it with the probability (in this case p = 0.975) and the degrees of freedom...

Translations

sociology: a person with deviant behaviour; a deviant, degenerate or pervert

• Finnish: poikkeava (fi), poikkeama (fi)
• Polish: dewiant (pl) m

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

Translations to be checked

• Danish: ^{(please verify)} afvige

Adjective

deviate

1. (sociology) deviant
   • 1987 February 1, Kim Westheimer, quoting John Gillespie, “Rawhide Boys”, in Gay Community News, volume 14, number 28, page 2:

     It's somewhat in vogue to give special attention and consideration to the alternative lifestyle, which five years ago we would have called the deviate lifestyle.

Italian

Verb

deviate

1. second-person plural present present subjunctive/imperative of deviare

Anagrams

• vediate, videate

Latin

Verb

dēviāte

1. second-person plural present active imperative of dēviō