Words & WritingGreek → English
Paradigm
/ˈpærədaɪm/noun
A pattern or model that shapes how a field understands its subject.
The Greek roots
παρά
pará
beside, alongside
δεικνύναι
deiknýnai
to show, to point out
Literally: “something shown alongside”
The story of the word
παράδειγμα is a specimen held up beside the thing being made: a builder's model, a table of verb endings, an example in an argument. For centuries English used it chiefly in that grammatical sense, the verb laid out in every person and tense. Thomas Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions gave it the modern meaning in 1962, and complaints about the word's overuse started almost immediately, including from Kuhn.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Late Latin → English
- First recorded
- 15th century
Same family
paradigmaticapodicticpolicy
In a sentence
Learn the paradigm and the irregular verbs stop looking random.
Everyone in the meeting used the word paradigm and nobody defined it.