EGAVE

paradigm

Academic Word List, sublist 7.

About 9.26 uses per million words.

Meaning

  1. noun A pattern, a way of doing something; especially a pattern of thought, a system of beliefs, a conceptual framework.
    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. noun An example serving as the model for such a pattern; an exceptionally good or prototypical example of a pattern or group.
  3. noun 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 "to sing" is "sing, sang, sung". The verb "to ring" follows the same paradigm.

Similar words

epitome prototype image mentality concept mindset notion paragon example principle

Often followed by

of for shift is in and that to has

Word family

paradigm shift paradigm shifts paradigmata paradigmatic paradigmatically paradigms

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