science
Definitions
General English
- noun the study of natural physical things, based on observation and experiment
General Science
- noun the study of the physical and natural world and phenomena, especially by using systematic observation and experiment
- noun a particular area of study or knowledge of the physical world
- noun a systematically organised body of knowledge about a particular subject
Commerce
- noun study or knowledge based on observing and testing
Information & Library Science
- noun knowledge which can be tested and proved usually according to natural laws
Medical
- noun a study based on looking at and recording facts, especially facts arranged into a system
Origin & History of “science”
Etymologically, science simply means ‘knowledge’, for it comes via Old French science from Latin scientia, a noun formed from the present participle of the verb scīre ‘know’. It early on passed via ‘knowledge gained by study’ to a ‘particular branch of study’, but its modern connotations of technical, mathematical, or broadly ‘non-arts’ studies did not begin to emerge until the 18th century. The derivative scientist was coined in 1840 by William Whewell: ‘We need very much a name to describe a cultivator of science in general. I should incline to call him a Scientist’, Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences 1840.
