Definition: speaking or behaving in an artificial way to make an impression
Similar words: strained, agonistic
Definition: struggling for effect
Usage: agonistic poses
Similar words: artificial, hokey, stilted, contrived
Definition: artificially formal
Usage: that artificial humility that her husband hated; contrived coyness; a stilted letter of acknowledgment; when people try to correct their speech they develop a stilted pronunciation
Similar words: constrained, forced, strained
Definition: lacking spontaneity; not natural
Usage: a constrained smile; forced heartiness; a strained smile
Similar words: elocutionary
Definition: (used of style of speaking) overly embellished
Usage: an elocutionary Oxonian delivery
Similar words: mannered
Definition: having unnatural mannerisms
Usage: brief, mannered and unlifelike idiom
Similar words: plummy
Definition: (of a voice) affectedly mellow and rich
Usage: the radio announcer's plummy voice
Synonyms: unnatural
Definition: not in accordance with or determined by nature; contrary to nature
Usage: an unnatural death; the child's unnatural interest in death
Similar words: violent
Definition: effected by force or injury rather than natural causes
Usage: a violent death
Definition: not normal; not typical or usual or regular or conforming to a norm
Usage: abnormal powers of concentration; abnormal amounts of rain; abnormal circumstances; an abnormal interest in food
Similar words: aberrant, deviant, deviate
Definition: markedly different from an accepted norm
Usage: aberrant behavior; deviant ideas
Similar words: anomalous
Definition: deviating from the general or common order or type
Usage: advanced forms of life may be anomalous in the universe
Similar words: antidromic
Definition: conducting nerve impulses in a direction opposite to normal
Similar words: atypical, irregular
Definition: deviating from normal expectations; somewhat odd, strange, or abnormal
Usage: these days large families are atypical; atypical clinical findings; atypical pneumonia; highly irregular behavior
Similar words: brachydactylic, brachydactylous
Definition: having abnormally short finger or toes
Similar words: defective
Definition: markedly subnormal in structure or function or intelligence or behavior
Usage: defective speech
Similar words: freakish
Definition: characteristic of a freak
Usage: a freakish extra toe
Similar words: kinky, perverted
Definition: (used of sexual behavior) showing or appealing to bizarre or deviant tastes
Usage: kinky sex; perverted practices
Similar words: subnormal
Definition: below normal or average
Usage: after the floods the harvests were subnormal; subnormal intelligence
Similar words: supernormal
Definition: exceeding the normal or average
Usage: years of supernormal employment during the war; a phase of supernormal excitability
Similar words: vicarious
Definition: occurring in an abnormal part of the body instead of the usual site involved in that function
Usage: vicarious menstruation