reducible

American  

[ri-doo-suh-buhl, -dyoo-] / rɪˈdu sə bəl, -ˈdyu- /

adjective

1. capable of being reduced.

2. Mathematics.

   1. of or relating to a polynomial that can be factored into the product of polynomials, each of lower degree.

   2. of or relating to a group that can be written as the direct product of two of its subgroups.

   3. of or relating to a set whose set of accumulation points is countable.

---

Other Word Forms

• nonreducibility noun
• nonreducible adjective
• nonreducibly adverb
• reducibility noun
• reducibleness noun
• reducibly adverb
• unreducible adjective
• unreducibly adverb

Etymology

Origin of reducible

late Middle English word dating back to 1400–50; reduce, -ible

Example Sentences

An understanding that our most consequential actions are largely overdetermined, meaning not reducible to a single motivation.

From Los Angeles Times

He praised the way Bergman’s contemporary “Hamlet” wasn’t “reducible to concept or shock” but allowed the play to emerge “like a painting scrubbed back to its original colors.”

From Los Angeles Times

As Indigenous people have always known, consciousness is not reducible to mathematical calculations, it's embodied, interconnected and inseparable from the matter that is life.

From Salon

“When we're talking to each other, we kind of create a single überbrain that isn't reducible to the sum of its parts,” Wheatley says.

From Scientific American

“The Consultant” is almost entirely reducible to this foursome.

From Washington Post