Oxford English and Spanish Dictionary, Thesaurus, and Spanish to English Translator

Home UK English norm

Meaning of norm in English:

norm

Pronunciation /nɔːm/

See synonyms for norm

Translate norm into Spanish

noun

1the normSomething that is usual, typical, or standard.
‘strikes were the norm’
- ‘Upper class or not, women must not assume that just because Caesarians have become the norm, it's normal.’
- ‘Testing has long impeded all groups of minority students, and is a strong barrier to the success of minorities in schools where standardized testing is the norm.’
- ‘We challenge you to join us in creating healthy work environments by making these standards the norm.’
- ‘As he readily admits, such an extreme experiment is not the norm for any typical American, but his case is used to prove a point about the rise of obesity in the United States.’
- ‘It has driving strength which is quite the usual and the norm running through the Mazda range.’
- ‘True, heavy rainfall in November is the norm, and deluges, whether they strike in March or in December, will always cause some flooding.’
- ‘We aim to develop a community in which working, teaching and learning are enjoyable, purposeful and effective and where high expectations are the norm.’
- ‘The country has been plagued by political scandals and infighting in government, and strikes and demonstrations are now the norm.’
- ‘Given the Pride In York campaign, the standards applied to Lilac Avenue should become the norm, not the exception.’
- ‘I'd like to have witnessed more action, but given that Kingston's darkest crimes are more one-offs than the norm, the night's events were pretty typical for the patrol.’
- ‘‘Being of normal weight is no longer the norm,’ says Johnstone.’
- ‘Far from the norm and at the same time about as normal as Hollywood gets, this is a hidden gem.’
- ‘Older people, particularly, worry about what appears to be everyday standards of behaviour which now pass as the norm in contemporary Western society.’
- ‘The brewery was praised for supplying its Old Brewery real ale throughout the country at relatively low prices - on average nearly 30p cheaper than the norm.’
- ‘Perhaps there is a shying away from the detailed academic tomes which have become the norm in biographies, towards something more friendly to the average reader.’
- ‘Expectations of excellence were the norm and achievement was the never-stated aim.’
- ‘Some companies, such as Bank of Ireland, automatically include this type of accident in their standard cover, but this is not the norm.’
- ‘Standards are very much the exception rather than the norm.’
- ‘But the trouble is that this kind of burglary - the kind most likely to go ‘wrong’ - is now the norm in Britain.’
- ‘The clamour for marks and a rank at the end of the term is so intense and common that it's the norm to harass a child as long as it's for better marks.’
standard, usual, normal, typical, average, the rule, predictable, unexceptional, par for the course, what one would expect, expected, to be expected, only to be expected
View synonyms
1. 1.1usually normsA standard or pattern, especially of social behaviour, that is typical or expected.
  ‘the norms of good behaviour in the Civil Service’
  ‘It is easy to assume that these new roles lead to strains on the elderly in that: they must adapt to changes in social norms and acceptable behavioral standards.’
  ‘The distortion and utter disregard for social norms, anti-social behaviour and altered family values, are some of the manifestations of this phenomenon.’
  ‘You may not conform to social norms and patterns.’
  ‘Abnormality has also been defined in terms of both statistical and social norms - behaviour that is statistically uncommon is seen as abnormal.’
  ‘You are likely to take steps that do not fit into social norms or patterns.’
  ‘It is based on the notion that society usually exercises control over individual behaviour and desire through social rules and norms.’
  ‘Certain financial reward today is, for some individuals, better than the uncertain reward of behaving properly and conforming to social norms.’
  ‘According to this view of things, the Revolution may have caused long aftershocks, but it did not itself generate norms or patterns of behaviour.’
  ‘Justice reinforces social norms and deters some would-be perpetrators.’
  ‘Although I like to think of myself as a modern and liberated woman, I can't help but fall prey to the guidelines of social norms.’
  ‘Medical workers are members of our society, and their value systems are largely consistent with social norms.’
  ‘Superimposed on shared expectations, preferences, and knowledge structures are social norms guiding action.’
  ‘Social norms and traditions of behavior, which are loosely correlated with the law, also set consumer expectations.’
  ‘It has long been established that there is a strong association between crime and deviant behavior and the breakdown of social bonds or norms.’
  ‘In such matters, social and cultural norms dictate people's behavior.’
  ‘Strict conformity to harsh social norms was demanded of everyone, regardless of status or wealth.’
  ‘However much we treasure a belief in free will, social norms and conventions exist partly to reduce the need to make choices in the first place.’
  ‘Those who deem conventional values and institutions as important are likely to abide by conventional social norms.’
  ‘In such settings, the social norms and rules which usually justify or encourage questioning and dissent may no longer work.’
  ‘Deviance refers to behavior or characteristics that violate significant social norms and expectations and are negatively valued by large numbers of people.’
  convention, standard, criterion, measure, gauge, yardstick, benchmark, point of reference, touchstone, barometer, litmus test, basis, scale, rule, formula, pattern, guide, guideline, model, exemplar, type
  View synonyms
2. 1.2A required standard; a level to be complied with or reached.
  ‘the 7 per cent pay norm had been breached again’
  ‘Now more than ever, the level of detail on every garment has become a requirement, and may soon reach the norm.’
  ‘Action will be taken against those who fail to comply with the norm.’
  ‘Many teachers themselves believe that 70 hours a week is the norm, and is required of them.’
  ‘One day it's 10 degrees below the norm for this time of the year, the next it's 10 degrees above.’
  ‘That is particularly important for rural suppliers, because often the rural supply is for their stock as well as for domestic purposes and they accept a standard that is below the norm.’
  ‘On average, these students' scores at Grades 3, 7, and 11 were at least one or more grade levels below the norm.’
  ‘By European standards, that's a really big budget; by Hollywood standards, it's below the norm.’
  ‘There are many people who are paid way above the norm.’
  ‘It streamlines and doctors the varieties of English into a uniform entity, and at the same time it makes the standardized English the norm, internationally acceptable and accessible.’
  ‘In general, a child is considered to have speech delay if speech development is significantly below the norm of other children of the same age.’
  ‘The share of the households in the distribution that has an availability of calories below the norm is classified as undernourished.’
  ‘Grahamstown city engineer Terry Horner objected as this did not meet the national minimum norms and standards which required road access to ‘each and every site’.’
  ‘Mid-week rain has kept water levels above the norm for the time of year and another bream-focussed contest seems likely.’
  ‘Fighters kept their gravity well below Earth norm, the standard gravity found on ships and space stations.’
  ‘According to Mintel, typical store brand food shoppers tend to be young, with incomes below the norm.’
  ‘Educational concessions, subsidies and promotions as well as government jobs are to be restricted to those who accept the small family norm.’
  ‘Taking the generally accepted norm of 5 people per family, that's 16 families.’
  ‘However, some countries in the SADC region are setting the norm and standard on how to win the war against corruption.’
  ‘Secondly, it has been incorrectly assumed that the standard set by developed countries can be considered the norm.’
  ‘It also showed that the majority of Scots think smoke-free restaurants should be the norm, prompting Deacon to call on the pub and restaurant trade to take urgent action to create smokeless zones.’
2Mathematics
The product of a complex number and its conjugate, equal to the sum of the squares of its real and imaginary components, or the positive square root of this sum.
1. 2.1An analogous quantity used to represent the magnitude of a vector.
  ‘The random vector is drawn from a Gaussian distribution whose standard deviation is 20% of the norm of the force vector.’

verb

[with object]

Adjust (something) to conform to a norm.
‘Recommendations for early identification testing often include the use of commercially available, nationally normed measures of reading and phonological awareness.’
- ‘Second, teachers have experience with many children, so their responses are implicitly normed.’
- ‘Though the test was normed for 7 year old students, these young students seemed to have trouble with the gradations of the scoring system.’
- ‘When the SAT was normed, its population represented a small minority of college-bound white middle-class students.’
- ‘This version of the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test was normed on monolingual Spanish speakers outside of the U.S. mainland and then tested with bilingual Hispanics on the U.S. mainland.’
- ‘Contrary to popular belief, IQ tests are very well normed and give consistent results across different forms of the test.’
- ‘Thus, lower performance of bilingual children on tests normed on monolinguals could imply a distribution of knowledge across the two languages rather than a general linguistic deficiency.’
- ‘The authors of one article made overt their use of research instruments with African American couples that were originally designed and normed with European American couples.’