Eccentricity

//ˌɛk.sɛnˈtɹɪs.ɪ.ti// noun

noun ·Common ·High school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The quality of being eccentric or odd; any eccentric behaviour. countable, uncountable

    "Although the Celebrity was almost impervious to sarcasm, he was now beginning to exhibit visible signs of uneasiness, the consciousness dawning upon him that his eccentricity was not receiving the ovation it merited."

  2. 2
    strange and unconventional behavior wordnet
  3. 3
    The ratio, constant for any particular conic section, of the distance of a point from the focus to its distance from the directrix. countable, uncountable

    "For an ellipse, the eccentricity is the ratio of the distance from the center to a focus divided by the length of the semi-major axis."

  4. 4
    a circularity that has a different center or deviates from a circular path wordnet
  5. 5
    The eccentricity of the conic section (usually an ellipse) defined by the orbit of a given object around a reference object (such as that of a planet around the sun). countable, uncountable
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  1. 6
    (geometry) a ratio describing the shape of a conic section; the ratio of the distance between the foci to the length of the major axis wordnet
  2. 7
    The farthest distance from a vertex to any other vertex. countable, uncountable

Synonyms

All synonyms
aberranceaberrancyaberrationabnormalityabnormityabsurdity

Example

More examples

"The behaviour of the Princess Monaco, one of the many victims of the French revolution, on the morning of her execution, will be long remembered for its eccentricity and heroism."

Etymology

From eccentric + -ity.

Related phrases

conic section

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.