Maladjuster

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A person who is unable or unwilling to adjust satisfactorily to the requirements of social life or their circumstances
2. Someone who struggles to adapt adequately to social norms, work environments, or personal situations
3. An individual who has difficulty conforming to or fitting into the social and environmental conditions around them

Etymology: "Maladjuster" is a plain formation: the prefix "mal-", meaning "bad" or "badly", from Latin "malus", attached to "adjust", which goes back to Latin "adjustare", "to put right" or "to fit". Adding the agent suffix "-er" yields a person or thing that does the action, here one who badly adjusts, or more loosely one who causes maladjustment. The pairing is worth noticing because "maladjust" was the base form and "-er" was added to it, so the noun is built on a verb that was itself already a prefixed formation. English has many such pairs, where a negative prefix is attached to a verb that already contains a Latin-derived stem, which is why the pattern can seem so productive in modern vocabulary.