strategy
Definitions
General English
- noun the decisions you make about how you are going to do something
Accounting
- noun a course of action, including the specification of resources required, to achieve a specific objective
Economics
- noun a plan of future action
Information & Library Science
- noun a plan which sets out the methods of achieving one’s goals
Media Studies
- noun a communicative act that has a clear purpose and has been pre-planned, e.g. to persuade or make a sale
Military
- noun the skill of using large military groupings (such as armies, corps, fleets, etc.) in order to achieve long-term objectives which will affect the course of a campaign or war
Politics
- noun a long-term plan of action
Sports
- noun a carefully devised plan of action to achieve a goal, or the art of developing or carrying out such a plan
Origin & History of “strategy”
Etymologically, strategy denotes ‘leading an army’. It comes ultimately from Greek stratēgós ‘commander-in-chief, general’, a compound noun formed from stratós ‘army’ and ágein ‘lead’ (a relative of English act, agent, etc). From it was formed stratēgíā ‘generalship’, which reached English via French stratégie. Another derivative was stratēgeīn ‘be a general’, which in turn spawned stratḗgēma ‘act of a general’. this passed via Latin stratēgēma and French stratagème into English as stratagem (15th c.).
