Other forms: anomalies
An anomaly is the one thing that does not fit the pattern. A statistical anomaly, dismiss it as an anomaly, a temperature anomaly.
In science an anomaly is where discovery starts: the orbit of Mercury was an anomaly until relativity explained it. In climate data, an anomaly is a difference from a long-term average, which is a purely technical use with no sense of strangeness. Dismissing something as an anomaly is a way of not investigating it. Note anomalous; and that the word means literally not even.
1nounanomalyThe one thing that does not fit the pattern.
“Last year's warm winter was an anomaly; normally the lake freezes by December.”
anomaly is an irregularity.
Also accepted in games: irregularity
Greek anomalia is an- plus homalos, even, from homos, same. An anomaly is literally something not level with the rest.
Proto-Indo-European
*sem-
Latin
anōmalia
English, today
anomaly
Built from
Learned borrowing from Latin anōmalia. From Latin anomalia, from Ancient Greek ἀνωμαλία (“irregularity, anomaly”), from ἀνώμαλος (“irregular, uneven”), negating the meaning of ὁμαλός (“even”), from ὁμός (“same”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA