schema

American  

[skee-muh] / ˈski mə /

noun

schemata, plural schemas plural

1. a diagram, plan, or scheme.

   Synonyms:

   model, framework, outline

2. an underlying organizational pattern or structure; conceptual framework.

   A schema provides the basis by which someone relates to the events they experience.

3. (in Kantian epistemology) a concept, similar to a universal but limited to phenomenal knowledge, by which an object of knowledge or an idea of pure reason may be apprehended.

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schema British  

/ ˈskiːmə /

noun

1. a plan, diagram, or scheme

2. (in the philosophy of Kant) a rule or principle that enables the understanding to apply its categories and unify experience

   universal succession is the schema of causality

3. psychol a mental model of aspects of the world or of the self that is structured in such a way as to facilitate the processes of cognition and perception

4. logic an expression using metavariables that may be replaced by object language expressions to yield a well-formed formula. Thus A = A is an axiom schema for identity, representing the infinite number of axioms, x = x, y = y, z = z, etc

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• schemas
  plural
• schemata
  plural

Etymology

Origin of schema

First recorded in 1790–1800; from Greek schêma “form, shape, appearance”

Explanation

If you were just commissioned to modernize your town's library, the first thing you'll make is a schema: an outline of your plan for reinventing libraries. Schema sounds like scheme, but they have different nuances. You scheme to snatch a cookie from the jar. A schema is more of a master plan. It can also just be an organized vision. If you have a master concept about how the world works, that's your world organization schema. Someone with an insanely big idea about how to change the world has "a grand schema." Now she just needs to make a practical schema for actually making that change.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

schema schemas schemata

In the more pessimistic schema, Tesla succumbs to competition and margin pressure, the market disregards Optimus in valuations and Robotaxi has slower growth expected.

From MarketWatch ● Dec. 8, 2025

During this time, Aimee was developing her own religious schema — she preached joy and love; said that everyone could connect to God personally; and that Jesus was about to reappear on earth.

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 24, 2025

Chess players remember the location of pieces on the board using schema, a way of organizing new information in the brain.

From Science Daily ● May 1, 2024

I had the idea of developing a similar dialogue schema and applying it to sales and marketing processes.

From Slate ● Oct. 28, 2023

Lacey, in turn, is sorting items into piles based on an organizational schema only she understands.

From "Paper Towns" by John Green

“We believe that unpacking mistakes, learning about our schemas, and forgiving ourselves leads to greater happiness and, yes, making fewer mistakes,” they write.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 27, 2026

The best answer I have is that they're built on what psychologists call schemas.

From Salon ● Oct. 10, 2022

Most of these problems come from the way that 1950s U.S. and U.K. social perspectives informed how computer schemas were created.

From Slate ● Oct. 23, 2019

The R.C.C., in midtown, is a bustling place, with dozens of dispatchers at consoles, studying two fifty-yard-long real-time schemas of the subway system on huge, curving walls.

From The New Yorker ● Jul. 2, 2018

Studies have shown that racial schemas operate not only as part of conscious, rational deliberations, but also automatically—without conscious awareness or intent.

From "The New Jim Crow" by Michelle Alexander

“It finally occurred to me to stop translating these strange disciplinary languages into technical schemata, and instead simply to learn them on their own terms,” he wrote.

From Washington Post ● Aug. 12, 2021

I’m never quite sure if she toils for hours devising schemata to impose order upon chaos or if she just concocts genius hypotheses on the fly.

From Slate ● Oct. 26, 2018

Artists do in fact have some power to change or reinforce our cognitive schemata.

From New York Times ● Aug. 2, 2016

One problem trailing the strategy of beginning with intuitions about fruitful semantic concepts rather than puzzling phenomena is that the different schemata linked to a concept confer divergent meanings to the same term.

From Salon ● Jun. 2, 2013

The fire seemed to live, go down, or die according to its own schemata.

From "The Bluest Eye" by Toni Morrison