objective
Objective means based on facts anyone can check rather than on personal feeling, and in philosophy it means existing independently of any observer.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)Definitions
- Based on facts that can be checked rather than on personal feelings, preferences or opinions.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address) - philosophy In philosophy: existing independently of whether anyone perceives or judges it.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)
Examples
- The review was objective: it named both the strengths and the weaknesses of the book.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address) - It is hard to be objective about your own work, which is why you show it to someone else.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)
Usage
Objective belongs to formal and semi-formal writing: reviews, reports, research papers, journalism about method. In casual speech people more often say fair or unbiased, and objective appears when the point is evidence rather than attitude. It usually stands before the noun it judges, as in objective assessment, objective criteria, objective observer, and it is gradable, so one account can be more objective than another.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)With a person, the preposition is about: objective about one’s own work, objective about the results. The adverb objectively modifies verbs of judging and reporting, and the noun objectivity names the quality rather than a single judgement. In the philosophical sense, of something existing whether or not it is perceived, the word is rare outside specialist writing and is not normally compared.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)The commonest error is to treat objective as a synonym of correct. An objective assessment can still be wrong if the data behind it are wrong, because objectivity concerns the method and not the outcome. A second error is to call a person objective when what is meant is that they have no opinions at all; impartial is closer to that idea.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)Word forms
Regular comparison according to English morphology (editorial description).
word forms
| przypadek | form |
|---|---|
| positive | objective |
| comparative | more objective |
| superlative | most objective |
Word forms: Editorial team
Collocations
- objective assessment
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address) - objective criteria
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address) - objective observer
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address) - objective truth
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)
Synonyms · Antonyms
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)source
Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)Etymology
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W. W. Skeat, An Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, 4th ed., Oxford 1910, open sourceRelated words
- object , root noun
- objectivity , noun
- objectively , adverb
Related entries
Questions and answers
What does objective mean?
Objective describes a judgement, account or method that rests on facts others can check, not on the preferences of the person making it. In philosophy it describes what exists whether or not anyone perceives it. The word evaluates how a conclusion was reached, not whether it is guaranteed to be right.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)What is the difference between objective and subjective?
Subjective belongs to the person having the experience, while objective claims to stand outside any single viewpoint. A taste is subjective, and a measurement is objective. The pair is not absolute: an account can be more or less objective depending on how much of it can be checked by someone else.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)Can a person be objective?
Yes, but the word then describes a stance rather than a permanent trait: a judge can be objective about a case, and a reviewer about a book. Impartial is often the better word for a person, since it names the refusal to favour one side, leaving objective for methods, criteria and evidence.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)Where does the word objective come from?
The Latin source is obiectum, something placed or cast in front of someone, from the verb obicere, to put or throw in the way. Skeat calls the English adjective a coined word and finds it in Bailey’s dictionary of 1731. Webster adds that philosophers have used the term in opposite directions, with Kant and Fichte reversing the older sense.