heuristic

[ hyoo-ris-tik or, often, yoo- ]

/ hyʊˈrɪs tɪk or, often, yʊ- /

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adjective

serving to indicate or point out; stimulating interest as a means of furthering investigation.

encouraging a person to learn, discover, understand, or solve problems on his or her own, as by experimenting, evaluating possible answers or solutions, or by trial and error: a heuristic teaching method.

of, relating to, or based on experimentation, evaluation, or trial-and-error methods.

Computers, Mathematics. pertaining to a trial-and-error method of problem solving used when an algorithmic approach is impractical.

noun

a heuristic method of argument.

the study of heuristic procedure.

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Origin of heuristic

1815–25; <New Latin heuristicus, equivalent to Greek heur(ískein) to find out, discover + Latin -isticus-istic

OTHER WORDS FROM heuristic

heu·ris·ti·cal·ly, adverbnon·heu·ris·tic, adjectiveun·heu·ris·tic, adjectiveun·heu·ris·ti·cal·ly, adverb

Words nearby heuristic

HEU, heuchera, heulandite, Heuneburg, heurige, heuristic, heuristics, Heusler alloy, HEV, hevea, Hevelian halo

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

How to use heuristic in a sentence

Racial identity is often a key heuristic that helps people interpret facts, says Britt Paris, an assistant professor of library and information science at Rutgers University.
Mob thinking has grown as news moves online|Alison Snyder|January 12, 2021|Axios
These links were themselves selected from posts most upvoted on the social media website Reddit, as “a heuristic indicator for whether other users found the link interesting, educational, or just funny.”
How our data encodes systematic racism|Amy Nordrum|December 10, 2020|MIT Technology Review
Simple heuristics are used to filter questions from the query stream.
Could Google passage indexing be leveraging BERT?|Dawn Anderson|October 29, 2020|Search Engine Land
It’s a facet of the “availability heuristic,” a cognitive bias that means people are more likely to imagine the future through the lens of recent events.
Humanity is stuck in short-term thinking. Here’s how we escape.|Katie McLean|October 21, 2020|MIT Technology Review

You can make some use rule-based AI, which guides the character using simple heuristics—if this happens, then do that.
A VR film/game with AI characters can be different every time you watch or play|Will Heaven|October 2, 2020|MIT Technology Review
The hill becomes heuristic for national identity (a haunted City on a Hill).
Slaves In A Family's Past Haunt The Present|Michael Signer|August 28, 2014|DAILY BEAST
He developed a heuristic for betting on Daily Doubles (which resulted in a wager of $5, the minimum allowed).
How I Taught Arthur Chu to Be the ‘Jeopardy!’ Champ Everyone Loves to Hate|Keith Williams|February 21, 2014|DAILY BEAST
In all other cases, as we have already pointed out, assumption and probability have only a heuristic value for us lawyers.
Criminal Psychology|Hans Gross
The instruments of Heuristic are being continually perfected, before our eyes, in two ways.
Introduction to the Study of History|Charles V. Langlois
But the imperfection of the modern instruments of Heuristic is quite unnecessary.
Introduction to the Study of History|Charles V. Langlois
It complemented the heuristic, innate propensity for seeking new choices.
The Civilization of Illiteracy|Mihai Nadin
The teaching, which follows the so-called “Heuristic” method, and the equipment of schools of every description, are admirable.
Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 13, Slice 5|Various

British Dictionary definitions for heuristic

heuristic

/ (hjʊəˈrɪstɪk) /

adjective

helping to learn; guiding in discovery or investigation

(of a method of teaching) allowing pupils to learn things for themselves

maths science philosophy using or obtained by exploration of possibilities rather than by following set rules
computing denoting a rule of thumb for solving a problem without the exhaustive application of an algorithma heuristic solution

noun

(plural) the science of heuristic procedure

Derived forms of heuristic

heuristically, adverb

Word Origin for heuristic

C19: from New Latin heuristicus, from Greek heuriskein to discover

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

heuristic

Origin of heuristic

OTHER WORDS FROM heuristic

Words nearby heuristic

Words related to heuristic

How to use heuristic in a sentence

British Dictionary definitions for heuristic

Derived forms of heuristic

Word Origin for heuristic