Link Centre Dictionary

paradigm

pa·ra·digm

UK/ˈpæɹ.ə.daɪm/ US/ˈpæɹ.ə.daɪm/ uncommon

noun

1.

systematic arrangement of all the inflected forms of a word

2.

a standard or typical example

  • “he is the prototype of good breeding”
  • “he provided America with an image of the good father”
3.

the class of all items that can be substituted into the same position (or slot) in a grammatical sentence (are in paradigmatic relation with one another)

4.

the generally accepted perspective of a particular discipline at a given time

  • “he framed the problem within the psychoanalytic paradigm”

Origin

From Middle English paradygme, from Late Latin paradīgma, from Ancient Greek παράδειγμα (parádeigma, “pattern”), from παραδείκνυμι (paradeíknumi, “I show [beside] or compare”) + -μα (-ma, suffix forming nouns concerning the results of actions). Doublet of paradigma.

Phrases

  • paradigm leveling
  • paradigm shift
  • social conflict paradigm

Related words

Word family

Narrower terms

WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.