A breed of options that bear non-standard features/ elements, as opposed to vanilla options (plain vanilla options). These features/ elements include barrier mechanisms, binary/ digital exercisability, multiple underlyings, etc. The non-standard types include barrier options, digital/ binary options, outperformance options, ladder options, rainbow options, etc.

By nature, these option are complex in structure, pricing, payoff pattern, etc., contrary to first-generation options (vanilla options), such as standard call options and put options.