norm

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /nɔːm/
• (General American) enPR: nôrm, IPA^(key): /nɔɹm/

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• Rhymes: -ɔː(ɹ)m

From Latin norma (“a carpenter's square, a rule, a pattern, a precept”).^[1] Doublet of norma.

norm (plural norms)

1. That which is normal or typical.

   Unemployment is the norm in this part of the country.

   • 2008, Dennis Patterson, Ari Afilalo, The New Global Trading Order: The Evolving State and the Future of Trade:

     […] the world needs a constitutional moment that will generate new institutions and actuate a new norm.

   • 2011 December 16, Denis Campbell, “Hospital staff 'lack skills to cope with dementia patients'”, in The Guardian‎^[1]:

     "This shocking report proves once again that we urgently need a radical shake-up of hospital care," said Jeremy Hughes, chief executive of the Alzheimer's Society. "Given that people with dementia occupy a quarter of hospital beds and that many leave in worse health than when they were admitted, it is unacceptable that training in dementia care is not the norm."

   • 2019 December 18, Richard Clinnick, “Railway's 2020 vision”, in Rail, page 3:

     Projects such as the King's Cross refurbishment, Waterloo blockade, Scottish electrification and the Borders show that the industry can do wonderful work - but that must become the norm, not the exception.

   • 2025 June 19, Rami Kaminski, ““Otroverts” and why nonconformists often see what others can’t”, in Big Think‎^[2]:

     For most people, this sacrifice is made easily and instinctively. Not so for otroverts, who are neither willing nor able to passively adopt the social scripts that others do. To the otrovert, who is constantly engaged with the choices and consequences of their individual life, social norms follow a circular logic: […]

2. A rule that is imposed by regulations and/or socially enforced by members of a community.

   Not eating your children is just one of those societal norms.

   • 2011, Roy F. Baumeister, John Tierney, Willpower, →ISBN, page 230:

     Peer pressure helps explain why people in Europe weigh less than Americans: They follow different social norms, like eating only at mealtimes instead of snacking throughout the day.

3. (philosophy, computer science) A sentence with non-descriptive meaning, such as a command, permission, or prohibition.
5. (mathematics) A function which satisfies a particular set of formal conditions, created to generalize the notion of the length of a vector. Formally, a real-valued function on a vector space, generally denoted ${\displaystyle v\mapsto \left|v\right|}$ or ${\displaystyle v\mapsto \left\|v\right\|}$, that satisfies the following properties:
   1. if ${\displaystyle v\neq 0}$ then ${\displaystyle \left\|v\right\|\neq 0}$;
   2. given a scalar ${\displaystyle k}$, ${\displaystyle \left\|kv\right\|=\left|k\right|\cdot \left\|v\right\|}$, where ${\displaystyle \left|k\right|}$ is the absolute value of ${\displaystyle k}$;
   3. given two vectors ${\displaystyle v,w}$, ${\displaystyle \left\|v+w\right\|\leq \left\|v\right\|+\left\|w\right\|}$ (the triangle inequality).
6. (mathematics) Any of several generalizations of the above: a field norm, ideal norm, etc.
   1. (algebra) An element of the image of some (generalized) norm, the element then said to be from the norm in question, or from the structure which gave rise to the norm.

      A quaternion algebra ${\displaystyle (a,b)}$ over ${\displaystyle k}$splits if and only if ${\displaystyle b}$ is a norm from the field extension ${\displaystyle k({\sqrt {a}})/k,}$ i.e. if and only if there is some ${\displaystyle x}$ in ${\displaystyle k({\sqrt {a}})}$ which has field norm exactly equal to ${\displaystyle b}$.

7. (chess) A high level of performance in a chess tournament, several of which are required for a player to receive a title.

• (mathematics): absolute value, p-adic absolute value, trivial absolute value

Back-formation from normed.

norm (third-person singular simple present norms, present participle norming, simple past and past participle normed)

1. (mathematical analysis) To endow (a vector space, etc.) with a norm.

• norming

• normalize, normalise

• “norm”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “norm”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.

• morn

From Latin norma.

• IPA^(key): /ˈnɒˀm/

norm c (singular definite normen, plural indefinite normer)

1. norm; standard

• “norm” in Den Danske Ordbog

Borrowed from French norme, ultimately from Latin nōrma. This etymology is incomplete. You can help Wiktionary by elaborating on the origins of this term.

• IPA^(key): /nɔrm/
• Hyphenation: norm
• Rhymes: -ɔrm

norm f (plural normen, diminutive normpje n)

1. a norm, standard

• normaal
• normatief
• normeren

From Latin norma.

norm m (definite singular normen, indefinite plural normer, definite plural normene)

1. norm (that which is normal)

• normere

• “norm” in The Bokmål Dictionary.

From Latin norma.

norm f (definite singular norma, indefinite plural normer, definite plural normene)

1. A norm (that which is normal).

• normera/normere
• normering

• “norm” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.

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norm c

1. norm (that which is normal)
2. norm (in analysis)

• normal
• normativ
• normera
• normalisera

• morn

From Proto-Finnic *nurmi, from Proto-Finno-Ugric *ńurme. Cognates include Finnish nurmi.

norm

1. lawn
2. meadow