paradigm

 
Pronunciation: /ˈparədʌɪm/

noun

  • 1a typical example or pattern of something; a pattern or model: society’s paradigm of the ‘ideal woman’
  • a world view underlying the theories and methodology of a particular scientific subject: the discovery of universal gravitation became the paradigm of successful science
  • 2 Linguistics a set of linguistic items that form mutually exclusive choices in particular syntactic roles: English determiners form a paradigm: we can say ‘a book’ or ‘his book’ but not ‘a his book’Often contrasted with syntagm.
  • 3(in the traditional grammar of Latin, Greek, and other inflected languages) a table of all the inflected forms of a particular verb, noun, or adjective, serving as a model for other words of the same conjugation or declension.

Origin:

late 15th century: via late Latin from Greek paradeigma, from paradeiknunai 'show side by side', from para- 'beside' + deiknunai 'to show'

Spelling help

Remember that the ending of paradigm is spelled -digm.