Word.ws English Dictionary

counternormative

counternormative adjective: contrary to what is normative; opposing or overthrowing norms.

Adjective

counternormative (comparative more counternormative, superlative most counternormative)

  1. Contrary to what is normative; opposing or overthrowing norms.
    • People may experience two opposing motivations after receiving unexpected or counternormative favors: an obligation to reciprocate and psychological reactance.2004 September, Amani El-Alayli, Lawrence A Messé, “Reactions toward an unexpected or counternormative favor-giver: Does it matter if we think we can reciprocate?”, in Journal of Experimental Social...

Forms of counternormative

comparativemore counternormative
superlativemost counternormative

Origin of counternormative

From counter- + normative.

Words formed from counternormative

Questions about counternormative

What does counternormative mean?
Counternormative means contrary to what is normative; opposing or overthrowing norms.
What part of speech is counternormative?
Counternormative is an adjective.

Words near counternormative in the dictionary

  1. counternarratives
  2. counternatural
  3. counternaturally
  4. counternoise
  5. counternoises
  6. counternormative
  7. counternormatively
  8. counternormativities
  9. counternormativity
  10. counternotice
  11. counternotices

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: counternormative (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “counternormative.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/counternormative. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.