Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun An attempt or tendency to explain a complex set of facts, entities, phenomena, or structures by another, simpler set.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun an approach to studying complex systems or ideas by reducing them to a set of simpler components
  • noun philosophy any of several theories holding that complex systems or ideas can always be reduced to a set of simpler components

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a theory that all complex systems can be completely understood in terms of their components
  • noun the analysis of complex things into simpler constituents

Etymologies

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