bracketology
Americannoun
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of bracketology
First recorded in 1995–2000; bracket ( def. ) (in the sports sense of “a diagram for tracking advancement in tournament”) + -o- ( def. ) + -logy ( def. )
Explanation
Bracketology is the process of guessing who will win each elimination round in a college basketball tournament. Your own bracketology might consist of picking winners whose team mascots you like best. ESPN basketball analyst Joe Lunardi is credited with coining the term bracketology in the 1990s. It comes from the method used to guess the outcome of the men's and women's NCAA tournaments. Starting with 68 teams and ending with two in the final game, winners are predicted for each single-elimination round using a bracket, or tree diagram. If you're not into basketball, you can use bracketology for other contests, like the coolest superhero or the best-ever animated movie.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
While the advancement of artificial intelligence into everyday life has made “AI” one of the buzziest phrases of the past year, its application in bracketology circles is not so new.
From Seattle Times • Mar. 18, 2024
He, like all others in said groups, speaks of bracketology like a toxic crush — with love, with agony, with an underlying knowledge of the human condition that attracts frustrating pursuit of the unattainable.
From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 16, 2023
Willard relays that information to his players — bracketology, analytics, strength-of-schedule metrics and so on.
From Washington Post • Jan. 25, 2023
Myths and legends are invoked along with genetics and geophysics, but bracketology is the relevant intellectual discipline.
From New York Times • Mar. 30, 2021
The Hoyas weren’t necessarily in that conversation before, but after the upset of Villanova, NCAA.com’s Andy Katz included Georgetown as a First Four team in his latest bracketology projection Thursday.
From Washington Times • Feb. 21, 2019
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
