anomalous, a.
(əˈnɒmələs)
[f. L. anōmal-us (see anomal) + -ous.]
1. With to: Unequal, unconformable, dissimilar, incongruous. arch.
| 1646 Sir T. Browne Pseud. Ep. 51 Neutralls and bodies anomalous hereto. 1652 Gaule Magastrom. 18 [The stars in the East] appeared and disappeared anomalous to ordinary starres. 1829 I. Taylor Enthus. x. 267 These [early missions]..were anomalous to the general feeling of Christians. |
2. a. simply: Unconformable to the common order; deviating from rule, irregular; abnormal.
| 1655 Lestrange Chas. I, 137 These things..being anomalous, innovations, and so severely urged, many..separated themselves into factious sidings. 1667 Phil. Trans. II. 601 Some anomalous Feavers. 1789 Bentham Princ. Legisl. xviii. §10 Offences of this description may well be called anomalous. 1872 Holmes Poet Breakf. T. xi. 347 Peculiar and anomalous in her likes and dislikes. |
b. in Nat. Hist.
| 1655 Let. in Hartlib Ref. Commw. Bees 22 A third very anomalous Generation..is of a sort of stinging Flies. 1737 P. Miller Gard. Dict. s.v. Viola, It hath a polypetalous, anomalous Flower, somewhat resembling the papilionaceous Flower. 1845 Darwin Voy. Nat. viii. (1879) 162 This beautiful and most anomalous structure is adapted to take hold of floating marine animals. |
c. in Gram.
| 1659 B. Walton Consid. Considered 263 The following Masorites, finding such anomalous punctuation, left all as they found them. 1706 Phillips s.v., In Grammar there are four kinds of Anomalous Nouns, viz. Heterogeneal, Heteroclites, Difficients and Redundants. 1874 Sayce Compar. Philol. ix. 349 The tendency of all linguistic progress is to reduce the number of anomalous forms. |
d. anomalous dispersion: the dispersion of light in the vicinity of an absorption band, where the refractive index changes rapidly with wavelength, being abnormally high on one side of the band and abnormally low on the other.
| 1883 R. T. Glazebrook Phys. Optics x. 277 In ordinary dispersing media the refractive index increases as the wave⁓length and the period of vibration decrease;..in media in which anomalous dispersion takes place this is not the case, for it is no longer true that waves of short period have a greater refractive index than waves of long period. 1899 A. S. Percival Optics viii. 179 Anomalous dispersion is best displayed in substances that have strongly marked absorption bands. 1904 J. Walker Analytical Theory of Light xvii. 337 There is an intimate connection between anomalous dispersion and the absorptive power of a substance. 1936 Discovery June 198/1 Such molecular rearrangements as anomalous dispersion and dipole phenomena. |