paradigm

• paradigma (archaic)

Established 1475-85 from Late Latin paradīgma, from Ancient Greek παράδειγμα (parádeigma, “pattern”), from παραδείκνυμι (paradeíknumi, “I show [beside] or compare”) + -μα (-ma, “forming nouns concerning the results of actions”).

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈpæɹ.ə.daɪm/
• (US) enPR: ˈpär.ə.dīm, IPA^(key): /ˈpæɹ.ə.daɪm/, /ˈpɛɹ.ə.daɪm/, /ˈpeɪɹ.ə.daɪm/

  (Mary–marry–merry merger)

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• Audio (AU)

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paradigm (plural paradigms)

1. A pattern, a way of doing something, especially (now often derogatory) a pattern of thought, a system of beliefs, a conceptual framework.

   Synonyms: model, worldview

   Thomas Kuhn's landmark “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions” got people talking about paradigm shifts, to the point the word itself now suggests an incomplete or biased perspective.

2. An example serving as the model for such a pattern.

   Synonyms: template, exemplar, posterboy

   • 2000, "Estate of William F. Jenkins v. Paramount Pictures Corp.":

     According to the Fourth Circuit, “Coca-Cola” is “the paradigm of a descriptive mark that has acquired secondary meaning”.

   • 2003, Nicholas Asher and Alex Lascarides, Logics of Conversation, Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 46:

     DRT is a paradigm example of a dynamic semantic theory, […]

3. (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.

   The paradigm of "go" is "go, went, gone."

• (exemplar): Thesaurus:exemplar, Thesaurus:model

• morphoparadigm
• paradigmatic
• paradigm shift
• paradigmaticism

• “paradigm” in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 4th edition, Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin, 2000, →ISBN.
• “paradigm” in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present.
• "paradigm" in WordNet 2.0, Princeton University, 2003.