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• aberrant •

Pronunciation: æ-ber-rênt; ê-ber-rênt • Hear it!

Part of Speech: Adjective

Meaning: Deviating from the norm, abnormal, atypical, anomalous.

Notes: An odd thing is happening to today's Good Word: its accent is changing. The accent has traditionally fallen on the second syllable, aberrant, but it is more and more pronounced with the accent on the first syllable, especially in the US: aberrant. At this stage, we have our choice. Do remember that this word is spelled with one B and two Rs, not the reverse. The noun for this word is aberration, a word that implies a verb, to aberrate, that we are free to use today.

In Play: Things aberrant deviate from the norm: "Gene Pool thinks himself an aberrant genius because he comes up with ideas like the helicopter ejection seat." This includes pretty much any type of unlikely behavior: "Showing up on time was such aberrant behavior for Will Doolittle that everyone gasped as he entered the room."

Word History: This word came from Latin aberran(t)s, the present participle of aberrare "to go astray". This verb is made up of ab "(away) from" + errare "to stray, to wander off course". The root of this verb, err- turns up on several English borrowings, including err and error, taken pretty much directly from Latin. The source of this Latin word came to the Germanic languages as German irren "to err, to wander astray" and ended up in English as ire, apparently dating back to a time when losing one's temper was considered an error in one's ways. (Today's Good Word was another contribution by the mysterious Klimt of the Alpha Agora, where our readers go every day to discuss the Good Words further.)

I guess I'm fully modernized on this one, I have to force myself to put the stress on the second syllable. How do you pronounce it?

/ pronounce it the old fashioned way.
Did you not hit the little connect at the top to hear how the Good Doctor reads both the new and the old?

Did you not hit the little connect at the top to hear how the Good Doctor reads both the new and the old?

Yep, I've heard them. I was just saying my natural tendency is to the first syllable. Probably influenced by aberration's stress being on the a.

OK, now you've got me giggling.
Aberration coming off my tongue has indeed the accent on the A but it is the second A (actually, of course, the RA).
Is that what you meant?

/ pronounce it the old fashioned way.

Me too. Never heard it pronounced with the accent on the first syllable. Maybe it's a US/UK difference.

Or perhaps my own pronuncification is aberrant?

Funny, isn't it? We have no trouble putting the emphasis on the third syllable of Aberration.

But remembering the original construction of aberrant, ab + errant, encourages me to go with emphasis on the first and the second.