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Idiosyncratic vs Atypical - What's the difference?

idiosyncratic | atypical | Related terms |

As adjectives the difference between idiosyncratic and atypical

is that idiosyncratic is peculiar to a specific individual; eccentric while atypical is not conforming to the normal type.

As a noun atypical is

an atypical antipsychotic.

idiosyncratic

English

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • Peculiar to a specific individual; eccentric.
  • * 1886 , (Robert Louis Stevenson), Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde , ch. 9:
  • At the time, I set it down to some idiosyncratic , personal distaste . . . but I have since had reason to believe the cause to lie much deeper in the nature of man.
  • * 1891 , (George MacDonald), The Flight of the Shadow , ch. 12:
  • It was no merely idiosyncratic experience, for the youth had the same: it was love!
  • * 1982 , Michael Walsh, " Music: A Fresh Falstaff in Los Angeles," Time , 26 April:
  • British Director Ronald Eyre kept the action crisp; he was correctly content to execute the composer's wishes, rather than impose a fashionably idiosyncratic view of his own.

    atypical

    English

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Not conforming to the normal type.
  • Unusual or irregular.
  • Noun

    (en noun)
  • (pharmacy) An atypical antipsychotic.