Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Of or relating to a usually speculative formulation serving as a guide in the investigation or solution of a problem.
- adjective Of or constituting an educational method in which learning takes place through discoveries that result from investigations made by the student.
- adjective Computers Relating to or using a problem-solving technique in which the most appropriate solution of several found by alternative methods is selected at successive stages of a program for use in the next step of the program.
- noun A heuristic method or process.
- noun The study and application of heuristic methods and processes.
from The Century Dictionary.
- Serving to find or discover.
- noun Same as
heuretic .
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun A heuristic method; a specific heuristic procedure.
- noun A theory or approach which serves to promote discovery or learning by encouraging experimentation.
- adjective Serving to promote discovery or learning; -- used especially of thories or paradigms which stimulate new ideas for discovering facts in experimental sciences.
- adjective Serving to stimulate people to learn and discover on their own, especially by encouraging experimental and trial-and-error methods for solving problems.
- adjective Pertaining to or based on trial-and-error and experimental methods of learning and evaluation.
- adjective (Computers) Based on the use of an efficient trial-and error method to search a space of possible solutions to a problem, or to find an acceptable approximate solution, when an exact algorithmic method is unavailable or too time-consuming.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective Relating to general
strategies or methods forsolving problems. - adjective computing that solves a problem more quickly but is not certain to arrive at an
optimal solution. - noun A heuristic
method . - noun The art of applying heuristic methods.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective of or relating to or using a general formulation that serves to guide investigation
- noun a commonsense rule (or set of rules) intended to increase the probability of solving some problem
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Perhaps one term in the heuristic is the number of non-english words/names?
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This is called a heuristic: a mental shortcut arrived at almost without thought because experience has forged the connections so deeply.
After the Diagnosis MD Julian Seifter 2010
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Personally I’ve found that a very good heuristic is exactly what Josh describes.
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Some virus scanners also employ an additional line of defence called heuristic analysis, which attempts to identify new forms of malware right away by scanning for smaller sections of code that might indicate some bad behaviour, even if the virus has never been detected before.
How Do You Know If Your Download Really Has A Virus? | Lifehacker Australia 2010
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Another way of assessing the merit of an argument in a communication is to use a so-called heuristic.
Experiential Marketing BERND H. SCHMITT 1999
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Another way of assessing the merit of an argument in a communication is to use a so-called heuristic.
Experiential Marketing BERND H. SCHMITT 1999
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This frontier is an abstraction, an heuristic, that is usually not known to the negotiators.
The Manager as Negotiator Bargaining for Cooperation and Competitive Gain DAVID A. LAX 1986
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This frontier is an abstraction, an heuristic, that is usually not known to the negotiators.
The Manager as Negotiator Bargaining for Cooperation and Competitive Gain DAVID A. LAX 1986
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The so-called heuristic detection methods could take only milliseconds to do what was previously done in a week, researchers claim.
iTnews Australia 2010
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One annoying problem with Vista's auto-elevation filename heuristic is that it overrides any manifests specified in the application.
Site Home 2010
shanglee commented on the word heuristic
The only real test is solving a problem by experience rather than theory.
January 20, 2008
seanahan commented on the word heuristic
It's important to note that "experience" doesn't necessarily imply human experience. A computer can examine sample problems to come up with heuristics, it is a standard technique in artificial intelligence.
January 21, 2008
maesepedro commented on the word heuristic
this is a killer concept but quite an annoying word to look at and pronunce IMHO.
September 17, 2008
maddening commented on the word heuristic
Heuristic evaluations are also performed on websites. It's moved from a literature-based concept to a web-based concept. Jakob Nielsen at useit.com describes the Heuristic process at is pertains to websites here:
http://www.useit.com/papers/heuristic/
March 30, 2009
jwjarvis commented on the word heuristic
strongly heuristic methodology
September 30, 2010
bluespoon commented on the word heuristic
This is exactly how I feel education should be structured.
September 4, 2012