material cause
Americannoun
Etymology
Origin of material cause
Middle English word dating back to 1350–1400
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.
The tribunal said that her protected disclosures were "an effective or material cause of her treatment".
From BBC • Jun. 12, 2023
While de Duve appreciated the poetic way the writers of Genesis interpreted the shortcomings of human nature, he believed that Natural Selection was the obvious material cause.
From Forbes • May 8, 2013
There is no functional reason for the height of a 13th century cathedral nave either; such building goes beyond a simple equation of material cause and effect.
From Time Magazine Archive
It is a warfare of limited aims between combatants who are unable to destroy one another, have no material cause for fighting, and are not divided by any genuine ideological difference.
From "1984" by George Orwell
As far as Aristotle was concerned, as we saw in Chapter 3, causal explanations had four components: the formal cause, the final cause, the material cause and the efficient cause.
From "The Invention of Science" by David Wootton
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.
