empirical
[em-pir-i-kuh l]
- derived from or guided by experience or experiment.
- depending upon experience or observation alone, without using scientific method or theory, especially as in medicine.
- provable or verifiable by experience or experiment.
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Origin of empirical
Synonyms
See more synonyms for empirical on Thesaurus.com1, 2. practical, firsthand, pragmatic.
Antonyms
1, 2. secondhand, theoretical.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for non-empirical
Historical Examples
But, in so doing, it accepted the particularism of experience and proceeded to supplement it from non-empirical sources.
Creative IntelligenceJohn Dewey, Addison W. Moore, Harold Chapman Brown, George H. Mead, Boyd H. Bode, Henry Waldgrave, Stuart James, Hayden Tufts, Horace M. Kallen
The proofs which Kant offers of them are, indeed, of a non-empirical a priori character.
A Commentary to Kant's 'Critique of Pure Reason'Norman Kemp Smith
Both thesis and antithesis may be true, the latter of the world of sense and the former of its non-empirical ground.
A Commentary to Kant's 'Critique of Pure Reason'Norman Kemp Smith
Those who deny the possibility of all non-empirical knowledge naturally hold that every axiom is ultimately based on observation.
empirical
- derived from or relating to experiment and observation rather than theory
- (of medical treatment) based on practical experience rather than scientific proof
- philosophy
- (of knowledge) derived from experience rather than by logic from first principlesCompare a priori, a posteriori
- (of a proposition) subject, at least theoretically, to verificationCompare analytic (def. 4), synthetic (def. 4)
- of or relating to medical quackery
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- statistics the posterior probability of an event derived on the basis of its observed frequency in a sampleCompare mathematical probability See also posterior probability
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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
Word Origin and History for non-empirical
empirical
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
empirical
(ĕm-pîr′ĭ-kəl)- Relying on or derived from observation or experiment.
- Verifiable or provable by means of observation or experiment.
- Of or being a philosophy of medicine emphasizing practical experience and observation over scientific theory.
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The American Heritage® Stedman's Medical Dictionary
Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company.
empirical
[ĕm-pîr′ĭ-kəl]
- Relying on or derived from observation or experiment.
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The American Heritage® Science Dictionary
Copyright © 2011. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.