epiphenomenon
Americannoun
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Pathology. a secondary or additional symptom or complication arising during the course of a disease.
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any secondary phenomenon.
noun
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a secondary or additional phenomenon; by-product
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pathol an unexpected or atypical symptom or occurrence during the course of a disease
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of epiphenomenon
First recorded in 1700–10; epi- + phenomenon
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.
See Examples For:
Physicists, notably Eugene Wigner and John Wheeler, have speculated that consciousness, far from being a mere epiphenomenon of matter, is an essential component of reality.
From Scientific American ● Sep. 27, 2021
I confess to a certain discomfort in arguing that conscious deliberation is strictly an epiphenomenon that plays no role in our decision-making.
From Salon ● May 30, 2021
But if he once struck me as the center point of the show’s ills, he now strikes me as a side effect or epiphenomenon.
From Slate ● Jul. 31, 2020
Because the stories focus on the fugitive, much of the viciousness of slavery is displaced onto the slave-catcher—an odious figure, to be sure, but ultimately an epiphenomenon of an odious system.
From The New Yorker ● Aug. 15, 2016
There is here an arc or loop of unbroken physical causation; and there is no "room" for consciousness, save as an "epiphenomenon," as postulated by Huxley.
From The Problems of Psychical Research Experiments and Theories in the Realm of the Supernormal by Carrington, Hereward
Both are epiphenomena of the ongoing streaming revolution in the music business.
From Slate ● Dec. 25, 2017
Where inflation is concerned, economists have routinely confused effects with causes, and epiphenomena with centrally important phenomena.
From Economist ● Jul. 26, 2012
Indeed, the fact that evolution in the hands of a thinker like Huxley, for instance, should make consciousness and thinking apparently useless epiphenomena, in a developing world, has seemed like a most contradictory evolutionary philosophy.
From International Congress of Arts and Science, Volume I Philosophy and Metaphysics by Various
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.
