nonlinear
adjective
Simple meaning
Whose output is not directly proportional to its input.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
nahnlineeerSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
nɑnˈlɪniɚ
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
adjective
of a system
Whose output is not directly proportional to its input.
of a set of points
Not lying on a straight line.
mathematicsof a function
Having a product of independent variables, or a variable with an exponent not equal to one.
Erratic and unpredictable; tending to jump back and forth.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B2 · Upper Intermediate (estimated)
- Frequency
- Moderately Common
- Typical Use
- Varies by meaning
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: (of a system) Whose output is not directly proportional to its input.
Used this way, nonlinear is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- No strong connotation
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use nonlinear
- “A film with a nonlinear plot.”adjective
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
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Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
Any correlation in which the rates of change of the variables is not constant.
Distortion that occurs when the output signal does not have a linear relation to the input signal.
A system whose performance cannot be described by equations of the first degree.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.