• Verb:
  • dē'vēāt, IPA: /ˈdiːvieɪt/
• Noun:
  • dē'vēət, IPA: /ˈdiːvi.ət/

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

     ...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

     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

     ...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

     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

     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

     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...

deviate (deviates, present participle deviating; past and past participle deviated)

1. (intransitive) To go off course from; to change course; to change plans.
   • 1709, [Alexander Pope], An Essay on Criticism, London: Printed for W. Lewis […], published 1711, OCLC 15810849 ↗:

     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.

3. (transitive) To cause to diverge.

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

• French: dévier
• German: abweichen
• Portuguese: desviar
• Russian: отклоня́ться

• German: abweichen
• Portuguese: desviar
• Russian: отклоня́ться

• deviant
• deviation