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theory

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English

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Etymology

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FromMiddle Frenchthéorie, fromLate Latintheōria, fromAncient Greekθεωρία(theōría,contemplation, divine perspective, speculation, a looking at, a seeking), fromθεωρέω(theōréō,I look at, view, see, consider, examine), fromθεωρός(theōrós,spectator), fromθέα(théa,view, perspective, sight) +ὁράω(horáō,I see, look) [i. e. θέαν ὁράω (théan horáō, “see, look at a view; survey + genitive”)].

Pronunciation

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Noun

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EnglishWikipedia has an article on:
Wikipedia

theory (countable anduncountable,pluraltheories)

  1. A description of an event or system that is considered to be accurate.
    • 1646,Thomas Browne,Pseudodoxia Epidemica, VII.19:
      As they encrease the hatred of vice in some, so doe they enlarge thetheory of wickednesse in all.
  2. (sciences) Acoherentstatement or set of ideas thatexplainsobservedfacts orphenomena and correctly predicts new facts or phenomena not previously observed, or which sets out thelaws and principles of something known or observed; ahypothesis confirmed by observation, experiment etc.[from 17th c.]
    • 1843,John Stuart Mill, ""A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive, ..., Bk V, Ch 7:
      In its most proper acceptation,theory means the completed result of philosophical induction from experience.
    • 1990, Tony Bennett,Outside Literature, page139:
      Does this mean, then, that there can be no such thing as atheory of literature?
    • 2002 May 23, Duncan Steel,The Guardian:
      It was only when Einstein'stheory of relativity was published in 1915 that physicists could show that Mercury's "anomaly" was actually because Newton's gravitationaltheory was incomplete.
    • 2003,Bill Bryson,A Short History of Nearly Everything, BCA, page118:
      The world would need additional decades [...] before the Big Bang would begin to move from interesting idea to establishedtheory.
    • 2009,Richard Dawkins,The Greatest Show On Earth: The Evidence for Evolution, Bantam, page10:
      Scientists and creationists are understanding the word "theory" in two very different senses. Evolution is atheory in the same sense as the heliocentrictheory. In neither case should the word "only" be used, as in "only atheory".
    • 2012 January, Michael Riordan, “Tackling Infinity”, inAmerican Scientist[1], volume100, number 1, archived fromthe original on30 April 2013, page86:
      Some of the most beautiful and thus appealing physicaltheories, including quantum electrodynamics and quantum gravity, have been dogged for decades by infinities that erupt when theorists try to prod their calculations into new domains. Getting rid of these nagging infinities has probably occupied far more effort than was spent in originating thetheories.
  3. (uncountable) The underlyingprinciples ormethods of a given technical skill,art etc., as opposed to itspractice.[from 17th c.]
    • 1998, Elizabeth Souritz,The Great History of Russian Ballet:
      Lopukhov wrote a number of books and articles on ballettheory, as well as his memoirs.
  4. (mathematics) Afield ofstudy attempting toexhaustivelydescribe a particularclass ofconstructs.[from 18th c.]
    Knottheory classifies the mappings of a circle into 3-space.
    • 1999, Wes DeMott,Vapors:
      It's just atheory I have, and I wonder if women would agree. But don't men say a lot about themselves when a short-skirted woman slides out of a car or chair?
    • 2003 June 21, Sean Coughlan,The Guardian:
      Thetheory is that by stripping costs to the bone, they are able to offer ludicrously low fares.
  5. (countable, logic) Aset ofaxioms together with allstatementsderivable from them;or, a set of statements which aredeductively closed.Equivalently, aformal language plus a set ofaxioms (from which can then be derivedtheorems). The statements may be required to all be bound (i.e., to have nofree variables).
    Atheory is consistent if it has a model.
  6. (obsolete) Mentalconception;reflection,consideration.[16th–18th c.]
  7. (informal) Ahypothesis orconjecture.[from 18th c.]

Usage notes

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In scientific discourse, the informal sense of “unsubstantiated statement or idea” is discouraged (withhypothesis orconjecture preferred), due to unintentional ambiguity and intentional equivocation with the sense “well-developed statement or structure”.

Synonyms

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Hyponyms

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Meronyms

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Holonyms

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Derived terms

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Related terms

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Translations

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a coherent set of statements attempting to explain observed phenomena
an unproven conjecture
a field of study in mathematics
in logic: a set of axioms and all statements derivable from them
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions atWiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked

See also

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References

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Anagrams

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