deviates

Deviates is the third-person singular present tense of the verb deviate, meaning to depart from an established course, standard, or expectation. It can describe physical paths, procedures, opinions, or measurements that do not follow a planned or usual pattern.

In everyday use, the term is applied to both tangible and abstract domains. For example, a road that twists away from its planned route deviates from the map, or a scientific result that does not align with a hypothesis deviates from the predicted outcome. In formal writing, the construction “deviates from” is common when specifying the source of the departure.

Etymology traces deviates to the Latin root deviāre, meaning to turn aside, formed from de- (away) and via (way or road). The word entered English via Old French and evolved into modern English as deviate, with deviates serving as the present tense for he, she, or it.

In statistics and related fields, deviation is the standard term for the amount by which a value differs from a reference value such as a mean. The verb form deviates is used to describe the action of moving away from that reference, as in “the data point deviates from the mean.” This usage emphasizes the action rather than the magnitude, which is typically referred to as the deviation.

See also: deviation, diverge, depart, variance.