norm

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a statistic describing the location of a distribution

   it set the norm for American homes

2. 2
   noun

   a standard or model or pattern regarded as typical

   the current middle-class norm of two children per family

3. 3
   noun

   That which is normal or typical.

   Unemployment is the norm in this part of the country.

4. 4
   noun

   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.

5. 5
   noun

   Initialism of naturally occurring radioactive materials.

   Radon in homes is one occurrence of NORM which may give rise to concern and action to control it, by ventilation.

6. 6
   noun

   A sentence with non-descriptive meaning, such as a command, permission, or prohibition.

7. 7
   noun

   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 v↦|v| or v↦‖v‖, that satisfies the following properties:

8. 8
   noun

   Any of several generalizations of the above: a field norm, ideal norm, etc.

Etymology

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