SYNTHETIC • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Synthetic

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/sɪnθˈɛtɪk/ Listen

adjective

Synthetical, Synthetic adj.

Of or pertaining to synthesis; consisting in synthesis or composition; as, the synthetic method of reasoning, as opposed to analytical. "Philosophers hasten too much from the analytic to the synthetic method; that is, they draw general conclusions from too small a number of particular observations and experiments."

(Chem.) Artificial. Cf. Synthesis, 2.

(Zool.) Comprising within itself structural or other characters which are usually found only in two or more diverse groups; said of species, genera, and higher groups. See the Note under Comprehensive, 3.

Synthetic language, or Synthetical language, an inflectional language, or one characterized by grammatical endings; opposed to analytic language.

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Etymology of 'Synthetic'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Synthetic" Quotes from Famous Books

... far that Rick wondered why he didn't conceal it with a beard. He seemed like a complete non-entity. In contrast to the white-haired man's style of dress, the nondescript man wore a rumpled black suit of synthetic fabric, a regular white shirt, and a tie that a color-blind old aunt might have given him ...

— The Flying Stingaree • Harold Leland Goodwin

... denial that he had been influenced by Comte. Yet there is a certain reminder of Comte in Spencer's monumental endeavour to systematise the whole mass of modern scientific knowledge, under the general title of 'A Synthetic Philosophy.' He would show the unity of the sciences and their common principles or, rather, the one great common principle which they all illustrate, the doctrine of evolution, as this had taken shape since ...

— Edward Caldwell Moore - Outline of the History of Christian Thought Since Kant • Edward Moore

... a plant that has grown from one seed; it is like a lake that has been fed by countless springs. It is a great pool of living water, mingled from many sources and tainted with much impurity. It is synthetic in its nature; it becomes simpler from ...

— God The Invisible King • Herbert George Wells

... extraordinary successes which have rewarded the efforts of scientific investigators. Everything now-a-days is expressed in terms of science and its formulae. Evolution is the keynote to the learning of the age. Thus Mr. Spencer's system of the Synthetic Philosophy is a bold and comprehensive attempt to take up the whole knowable, and express it anew in the language of development. It is emphatically, professedly, the philosophy of evolution, the rigid application of a purely scientific formula to everything capable of philosophical ...

— Morality as a Religion - An exposition of some first principles • W. R. Washington Sullivan

... superstructure was to be finally edified. But the architect who placed each block in its proper niche, who planned and designed the whole elevation, who planted the building firmly on the rock and poised the coping-stone on the topmost pinnacle, was the author of the 'System of Synthetic Philosophy,' and none other. It is a strange proof of how little people know about their own ideas, that among the thousands who talk glibly every day of evolution, not ten per cent. are probably aware that both word and conception are alike due to the commanding ...

— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen

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