paradigm
noun
Simple meaning
A pattern, a way of doing something.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
pehruhdymSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈpɛɹədaɪm
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.
noun
A pattern, a way of doing something; especially a pattern of thought, a system of beliefs, a conceptual framework.
An example serving as the model for such a pattern; an exceptionally good or prototypical example of a pattern or group.
linguistics
A set of all forms which contain a common element, especially the set of all inflectional forms of a word or a particular grammatical category.
linguistics
Systematic arrangement of all the inflected forms of a word
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B1 · Intermediate (estimated)
- Frequency
- Moderately Common
- Typical Use
- General and technical use
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A pattern, a way of doing something; especially a pattern of thought, a system of beliefs, a conceptual framework.
Used this way, paradigm 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
- Matter-of-fact
- 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 paradigm
- “He framed the problem within the psychoanalytic paradigm.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Pattern
Systematic
Other combinations
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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.