paradigm
A paradigm is a model or pattern that sets how a subject is approached, and in grammar the full set of forms a word can take.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)Definitions
- A typical example or pattern of something; a model.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address) - The set of assumptions and practices that defines how a subject is approached at a given time.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address) - grammar In grammar: the full set of inflected forms of a word.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)
Examples
- The discovery overturned the ruling paradigm in the field.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address) - Latin verbs are usually learned through their paradigms.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)
Usage
Paradigm is a formal word and in general writing it is almost always paired with shift or change, which signals that a whole way of working is being replaced. In science writing it names the assumptions a field takes for granted, in business writing it is often stretched to mean any new method. In grammar the word keeps its older, narrower sense and is entirely neutral.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)The usual patterns are a paradigm shift, the dominant paradigm and a new paradigm, and the verb shift takes the preposition to: a shift to a new paradigm. In linguistics the word appears in the phrase the paradigm of a verb, and the plural paradigms is normal there, while business prose prefers the singular. In front of it one finds dominant, prevailing and ruling.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)Paradigm is often confused with theory. A theory makes claims that evidence can overturn, while a paradigm supplies the assumptions that decide which claims are worth testing at all, which is why a paradigm shift is rarer and more disruptive. A second loose use calls any procedure a paradigm, when method or template would be more accurate.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)Word forms
Regular forms according to English morphology (editorial description).
word forms
| przypadek | forma |
|---|---|
| singular | paradigm |
| plural | paradigms |
Word forms: Editorial team
Collocations
- paradigm shift
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address) - the dominant paradigm
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address) - a new paradigm
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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)Etymology
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Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, 1913, open sourceRelated words
- paradigmatic , adjective
Related entries
Questions and answers
What does paradigm mean?
A paradigm is the frame a field works inside: the models it copies and the assumptions it no longer argues about. The word also names a single typical example of something, and in grammar the complete set of inflected forms of a word, such as every case of a Latin noun.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)What is a paradigm shift?
A paradigm shift is a change in the basic assumptions of a field, not just in its findings. The phrase is often used loosely for any big change in practice. Its force depends on the stricter sense, in which the questions themselves change, so that work done under the old assumptions stops counting as an answer.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)What is a paradigm in grammar?
In grammar the term covers every inflected form of a word, listed together so that the pattern can be learned as a unit. Latin and Greek verbs are traditionally taught that way. Webster’s dictionary of 1913 already gives the grammatical sense, describing a full conjugation or declension laid out in order.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)Where does the word paradigm come from?
From Greek paradeigma, a pattern or model, formed from paradeiknynai, to show side by side, which joins para, beside, with deiknynai, to show. Latin paradigma and French paradigme carried it into English. The grammatical sense is old rather than modern, and Webster already listed it in 1913.