deviate

present singular third person deviates · participle present deviating · participle past deviated · past deviated

1. intransitiveTo go off course from; to change course; to change plans.

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

   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

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   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.

   1749, Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling

   Now listen to what you've got to do, and this time if you deviate a single hair or try any of your monkey tricks it's the deep end you'll go off at.

   1934, Ernest Bramah [pseudonym; Ernest Brammah Smith], The Bravo of London

   Synonyms: swerve, veer

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

   His exhibition of nude paintings deviated from the norm.

   Synonyms: stray, wander

3. transitiveTo cause to diverge.

plural deviates

1. human sciencesA person with deviant behaviour; a deviant, degenerate or pervert.

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

   2001, Rupert Brown, Group Processes

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   […] 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 […]

   1915, James Cornelius Wilson, A Handbook of medical diagnosis

   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 […]

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

   Synonyms: deviant, degenerate, pervert

2. mathematicsA value equal to the difference between a measured variable factor and a fixed or algorithmic reference value.

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

   1928, Karl J. Holzinger, Statistical Methods for Students in Education

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   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.

   2001, Sanjeev B. Sarmukaddam, Indrayan Indrayan, Abhaya Indrayan, Medical Biostatistics

   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...

   2005, Michael J. Crawley, Statistics: An Introduction Using R

1. human sciencesdeviant

   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.

   1987 February 1, Kim Westheimer, quoting John Gillespie, “Rawhide Boys”, in Gay Community News, volume 14, number 28, page 2