Adjacent Words

Dichotomy definitions

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Webster's 1828 Dictionary

DICHOTOMY, n. [Gr., a division into two parts; to cut.]
1. Division or distribution of ideas by pairs. [Little used.]
2. In astronomy, that phase of the moon in which it appears bisected, or shows only half its disk, as at the quadratures.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

n
1: being twofold; a classification into two opposed parts or subclasses; "the dichotomy between eastern and western culture" [syn: dichotomy, duality]

Merriam Webster's

noun (plural -mies) Etymology: Greek dichotomia, from dichotomos Date: 1610 1. a division into two especially mutually exclusive or contradictory groups or entities <the dichotomy between theory and practice>; also the process or practice of making such a division <dichotomy of the population into two opposed classes> 2. the phase of the moon or an inferior planet in which half its disk appears illuminated 3. a. bifurcation; especially repeated bifurcation (as of a plant's stem) b. a system of branching in which the main axis forks repeatedly into two branches c. branching of an ancestral line into two equal diverging branches 4. something with seemingly contradictory qualities <it's a dichotomy, this opulent Ritz-style luxury in a place that fronts on a boat harbor — Jean T. Barrett>

Oxford Reference Dictionary

n. (pl. -ies) 1 a a division into two, esp. a sharply defined one. b the result of such a division. 2 binary classification. 3 Bot. & Zool. repeated bifurcation. Derivatives: dichotomic adj. dichotomize v. dichotomous adj. Etymology: mod.L dichotomia f. Gk dikhotomia f. dikho- apart + -TOMY

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Dichotomy Di*chot"o*my, n. [Gr. ?, fr. ?: cf. F. dichotomie. See Dichotomous.] 1. A cutting in two; a division. A general breach or dichotomy with their church. --Sir T. Browne. 2. Division or distribution of genera into two species; division into two subordinate parts. 3. (Astron.) That phase of the moon in which it appears bisected, or shows only half its disk, as at the quadratures. 4. (Biol.) Successive division and subdivision, as of a stem of a plant or a vein of the body, into two parts as it proceeds from its origin; successive bifurcation. 5. The place where a stem or vein is forked. 6. (Logic) Division into two; especially, the division of a class into two subclasses opposed to each other by contradiction, as the division of the term man into white and not white.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

(dichotomies) If there is a dichotomy between two things, there is a very great difference or opposition between them. (FORMAL) There is a dichotomy between the academic world and the industrial world. N-COUNT: usu sing, oft N between pl-n

Moby Thesaurus

Janus, abscission, ambiguity, ambivalence, amputation, bifidity, biformity, bifurcation, bipartition, bisection, branching, butchering, by two, chopping, cleavage, conjugation, cutting, cutting in two, dimidiation, division, doubleness, doublethink, doubling, dualism, duality, duplexity, duplication, duplicity, enucleation, equivocality, excision, fission, forking, halving, in half, irony, laceration, mutilation, pairing, polarity, ramification, rending, resection, ripping, scission, section, severance, slashing, slicing, splitting, subdivision, surgery, tearing, twinning, two-facedness, twoness