SOCIAL SYSTEM

Pronunciation (US):

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does social system mean? 

• SOCIAL SYSTEM (noun)
  The noun SOCIAL SYSTEM has 1 sense:

1. the people in a society considered as a system organized by a characteristic pattern of relationships

  Familiarity information: SOCIAL SYSTEM used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• SOCIAL SYSTEM (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The people in a society considered as a system organized by a characteristic pattern of relationships

Classified under:

Nouns denoting groupings of people or objects

Synonyms:

social organisation; social organization; social structure; social system; structure

Context example:

sociologists have studied the changing structure of the family

Hypernyms ("social system" is a kind of...):

scheme; system (a group of independent but interrelated elements comprising a unified whole)

Meronyms (members of "social system"):

form of government; political system (the members of a social organization who are in power)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "social system"):

feudal system; feudalism (the social system that developed in Europe in the 8th century; vassals were protected by lords who they had to serve in war)

patriarchate; patriarchy (a form of social organization in which a male is the family head and title is traced through the male line)

matriarchate; matriarchy (a form of social organization in which a female is the family head and title is traced through the female line)

meritocracy (a form of social system in which power goes to those with superior intellects)

pluralism (a social organization in which diversity of racial or religious or ethnic or cultural groups is tolerated)

class structure (the organization of classes within a society)

segregation; separatism (a social system that provides separate facilities for minority groups)

Holonyms ("social system" is a member of...):

society (an extended social group having a distinctive cultural and economic organization)

 Context examples 

Upon my life, the whole social system (as the men call it when they make speeches in Parliament) is a system of Prince's nails! said this least of women, trying to fold her short arms, and nodding her large head.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)