irregular
Language: English
Part of speech: adj
Pronunciation: ipa: /ɪˈɹɛɡ.jʊ.lə/
ipa: /ɪˈɹɛɡ.jə.lɚ/
ipa: /ɪˈɹeɡ.jə.lə/
Forms: form: more irregular
form: most irregular
Etymology: From Middle English irreguler, from Old French irreguler, from Medieval Latin or Late Latin irrēgulāris, from in- + regularis, equivalent to ir- + regular.
Senses: examples: text: ‘ “It would be most irregular Grandpa!” says Miss Cecily frowning and tapping her foot. “Well, we’re a pretty irregular family so that’s neither here nor there,” says the old man, impish like. [...] ’
ref: 1967, Barbara Sleigh, Jessamy, Sevenoaks, Kent: Bloomsbury, published 1993, →ISBN, page 33:
glosses: Nonstandard; not conforming to rules or expectations.
glosses: Rough (of a surface).
examples: text: The hovel stood in the centre of what had once been a vegetable garden, but was now a patch of rank weeds. Surrounding this, almost like a zareba, was an irregular ring of gorse and brambles, an unclaimed vestige of the original common.
ref: 1944, Miles Burton, chapter 5, in The Three Corpse Trick:
text: Near by, where the crystal clear River Llugwy is crossed by a bridge, stands a small and ancient church built of massive, irregular boulders.
ref: 1980, AA Book of British Villages, Drive Publications Ltd, page 100:
text: Many of these classic methods are still used, with some modern improvements. For example, with the aid of special microphones and automated sound detection software, ornithologists recently reported […] that pine siskins (Spinus pinus) undergo an irregular, nomadic type of nocturnal migration.
ref: 2013 January 1, Paul Bartel, Ashli Moore, “Avian Migration: The Ultimate Red-Eye Flight”, in American Scientist, volume 101, number 1, pages 47–48:
text: Irregular bedtimes may disrupt healthy brain development in young children, according to a study of intelligence and sleeping habits. ¶ Going to bed at a different time each night affected girls more than boys, but both fared worse on mental tasks than children who had a set bedtime, researchers found.
ref: 2013 July 19, Ian Sample, “Irregular bedtimes may affect children's brains”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 6, page 34:
text: The improvements will be most keenly felt across Lincolnshire, where current irregular service patterns are more a function of operational convenience than passenger demand.
ref: 2019 October, Tony Miles, Philip Sherratt, “EMR kicks off new era”, in Modern Railways, page 58:
glosses: Without symmetry, regularity, or uniformity.
topics: geometry
mathematics
sciences
glosses: Not regular; having sides that are not equal or angles that are not equal.
raw_tags: of a polygon
topics: geometry
mathematics
sciences
glosses: Whose faces are not all regular polygons (or are not equally inclined to each other).
raw_tags: of a polyhedron
examples: text: "Calves", "cacti", and "children" are irregular plurals.
text: To buy is an irregular English verb, its past simple and past participle tense is "bought".
text: I hate learning all the irregular conjugations in French.
topics: grammar
human-sciences
linguistics
sciences
glosses: Not following the regular or expected patterns of inflection in a given language.
raw_tags: of a word
Synonyms: word: abnormal
word: singular
word: strange
sense: rough
word: coarse
word: salebrous
word: rough
sense: without uniformity
word: unstable
word: unsteady
sense: not following the regular patterns of inflection
word: heteroclite
Derived terms: irregular galaxy
irregularist
irregularity
irregularization
irregularize
irregularly
irregularness
irregular prime
irregular prism
irregular verb
irregular warfare
nonirregular
on an irregular basis
regioirregular
stereoirregular