Meaning

• A line or vector that is perpendicular to another line, surface, or plane.

• A person who is normal, who fits into mainstream society, as opposed to those who live alternative lifestyles.

• The usual state.

  "Heavy workload is the new normal."

Meaning

• According to norms or rules or to a regular pattern.

  "Organize the data into third normal form."

• Usual, healthy; not sick or ill or unlike oneself.

  "John is feeling normal again."

• (of a school) teaching teachers how to teach (to certain norms)

  "My grandmother attended Mankato State Normal School."

• Of, relating to, or being a solution containing one equivalent weight of solute per litre of solution.

• Describing a straight chain isomer of an aliphatic hydrocarbon, or an aliphatic compound in which a substituent is in the 1- position of such a hydrocarbon.

• (of a mode in an oscillating system) In which all parts of an object vibrate at the same frequency (see normal mode).

• (of points) In the default position, set for the most frequently used route.

• Perpendicular to a tangent of a curve or derivative of a surface.

  "The interior normal vector of an ideal perfect sphere will always point toward the center, and the exterior normal vector directly away, and both will always be co-linear with the ray whose' tip ends at the point of intersection, which is the intersection of all three sets of points."