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  1. a standard, model, or pattern.
  2. general level or average: Two cars per family is the norm in most suburban communities.
  3. Education.
    1. a designated standard of average performance of people of a given age, background, etc.
    2. a standard based on the past average performance of a given individual.
  4. Mathematics.
    1. a real-valued, nonnegative function whose domain is a vector space, with properties such that the function of a vector is zero only when the vector is zero, the function of a scalar times a vector is equal to the absolute value of the scalar times the function of the vector, and the function of the sum of two vectors is less than or equal to the sum of the functional values of each vector. The norm of a real number is its absolute value.
    2. the greatest difference between two successive points of a given partition.

Origin of norm

First recorded in 1815–25, norm is from the Latin word norma carpenter's square, rule, pattern
Related formsnorm·less, adjective


  1. Norman.

Examples from the Web for norm

Contemporary Examples

Historical Examples

  • Every one is a judge of everything, for he holds fast to the norm.

    The New Society

    Walther Rathenau

  • The mores contain the norm by which, if we should discuss the mores, we should have to judge the mores.


    William Graham Sumner

  • Then they seem true and right, and arise into mores as the norm of welfare.


    William Graham Sumner

  • So also frênai has given Freeney, chênai, Chaney, and the Norm.

    The Romance of Names

    Ernest Weekley

  • The meaning of a rule, of a norm which the man sets up for himself.

British Dictionary definitions for norm


  1. an average level of achievement or performance, as of a group or person
  2. a standard of achievement or behaviour that is required, desired, or designated as normal
  3. sociol an established standard of behaviour shared by members of a social group to which each member is expected to conform
  4. maths
    1. the length of a vector expressed as the square root of the sum of the square of its components
    2. another name for mode (def. 6)
  5. geology the theoretical standard mineral composition of an igneous rock

Word Origin

C19: from Latin norma carpenter's rule, square


  1. a stereotype of the unathletic Australian male

Word Origin

from a cartoon figure in the government-sponsored Life, Be In It campaign


abbreviation for
  1. normal


abbreviation for
  1. Norman

Word Origin and History for norm


"standard, pattern, model," 1821, from French norme, from Latin norma "carpenter's square, rule, pattern," of unknown origin. Klein suggests a borrowing (via Etruscan) of Greek gnomon "carpenter's square." The Latin form of the word, norma, was used in English in the sense of "carpenter's square" from 1670s.

Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper