THEORETIC

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does theoretic mean? 

• THEORETIC (adjective)
  The adjective THEORETIC has 1 sense:

1. concerned primarily with theories or hypotheses rather than practical considerations

  Familiarity information: THEORETIC used as an adjective is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• THEORETIC (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Concerned primarily with theories or hypotheses rather than practical considerations

Synonyms:

theoretic; theoretical

Context example:

theoretical science

Similar:

abstractive (of an abstracting nature or having the power of abstracting)

a priori (based on hypothesis or theory rather than experiment)

conjectural; divinatory; hypothetic; hypothetical; supposed; suppositional; suppositious; supposititious (based primarily on surmise rather than adequate evidence)

notional; speculative (not based on fact or investigation)

metaphysical (highly abstract and overly theoretical)

theory-based (based in theory rather than experiment)

Derivation:

theory (a tentative insight into the natural world; a concept that is not yet verified but that if true would explain certain facts or phenomena)

theory (a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world; an organized system of accepted knowledge that applies in a variety of circumstances to explain a specific set of phenomena)

 Context examples 

An information-theoretic algorithm for reverse engineering of transcriptional networks using microarray data, specifically designed to scale up to the complexity of regulatory networks in mammalian cells, yet general enough to address a wider range of network deconvolution problems, while eliminating the majority of indirect interactions inferred by co-expression methods.

(ARACNE Algorithm, NCI Thesaurus)