Anomaly means something like fishy. There is something that is distorted from what you think it is. There is an ambiguity of transaction or expectation. You do not expect the thing to exist that way, a figure that is wrong, in sort anomalous. When it comes to market anomalies, there are distortions in returns that contradict the efficient market hypothesis . There are pricing anomalies when something—for example, a stock—is priced differently than how a model predicts it will be priced. Anomaly is also found in politics, especially during elections. Have you encountered anomalous transactions online and offline?