paradigm

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. One that serves as a pattern or model.
2. n. A set or list of all the inflectional forms of a word or of one of its grammatical categories: the paradigm of an irregular verb.
3. n. A set of assumptions, concepts, values, and practices that constitutes a way of viewing reality for the community that shares them, especially in an intellectual discipline.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. An example; a model.
2. n. In grammar, an example of a word, as a noun, adjective, or verb, in its various inflections.
3. n. In rhetoric, an example or illustration, of which parable and fable are species: a general term, used by Greek writers.

Wiktionary

1. n. An example serving as a model or pattern; a template.
2. n. A set of all forms which contain a common element, especially the set of all inflectional forms of a word or a particular grammatical category.
3. n. A system of assumptions, concepts, values, and practices that constitutes a way of viewing reality.
4. n. A conceptual framework—an established thought process.
5. n. A way of thinking which can occasionally lead to misleading predispositions; a prejudice. A route of mental efficiency which has presumably been verified by affirmative results/predictions.
6. n. A philosophy consisting of ‘top-bottom’ ideas (namely biases which could possibly make the practitioner susceptible to the ‘confirmation bias’).

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. An example; a model; a pattern.
2. n. An example of a conjugation or declension, showing a word in all its different forms of inflection.
3. n. An illustration, as by a parable or fable.
4. n. A theory providing a unifying explanation for a set of phenomena in some field, which serves to suggest methods to test the theory and develop a fuller understanding of the topic, and which is considered useful until it is be replaced by a newer theory providing more accurate explanations or explanations for a wider range of phenomena.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. the generally accepted perspective of a particular discipline at a given time
2. n. the class of all items that can be substituted into the same position (or slot) in a grammatical sentence (are in paradigmatic relation with one another)
3. n. systematic arrangement of all the inflected forms of a word
4. n. a standard or typical example