Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Of or relating to a paradigm.
  • adjective Linguistics Of or relating to the set of substitutional or oppositional relationships a linguistic unit has with other units, such as the relationship between (n) in not and other sounds that could be substituted for it in the same context, like (t) and (p). Together with the set of syntagmatic relations, paradigmatic relations describe the identity of a linguistic unit in a given language.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Exemplary; model.
  • noun In theology, one who narrated the lives of religious persons to serve as examples of Christian holiness.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Exemplary.
  • noun (Eccl. Hist.) A writer of memoirs of religious persons, as examples of Christian excellence.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective of or pertaining to a paradigm
  • adjective related as members of a substitution class
  • adjective obsolete exemplary
  • noun historical, religion A writer of memoirs of religious persona, as examples of Christian excellence.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective of or relating to a grammatical paradigm
  • adjective of or relating to a typical example
  • adjective related as members of a substitution class

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[French paradigmatique, from Greek paradeigmatikos, serving as a model, from paradeigma, paradeigmat-, example; see paradigm.]

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Examples

  • In any case, Christian critics of modernity too often paint with a big brush that does not capture elements of the Christian tradition present within paradigmatic representatives of modern liberalism.

    Matthew Yglesias » Before There Was Early Rawls… 2007

  • Insistence on that distinction not only renders aesthetic experience cold-hearted and dull, but it also fails to accommodate certain paradigmatic aesthetic affects, including the important role of emotions and their somatic register in the apprehension of art (Robinson; Shusterman).

    Tastes and Pleasures 2007

  • The institute's first client was not famous at all but what Mr. Mellor calls a "paradigmatic" one who framed an injustice with crystal clarity.

    Litigating for Liberty Collin Levy 2012

  • Indeed, he might be called paradigmatic of the new style: technically adept but soulless.

    Artistic Sensibilities James Maliszewski 2008

  • Putting aside for the moment that Anderson's own account of Sartre's career belies this statement, Sartre was not "paradigmatic" of anything except his own thinking and writing.

    Politics and Literature 2007

  • There is a kind of paradigmatic subversion that channels explanations a certain way in all branches of science.

    von Storch and Zorita blog on the Hockey Stick « Climate Audit 2007

  • This article traces the contours of a different kind of paradigmatic split, one that results in protracted confluence and contest rather than an immediate absorption of one model by another.

    A Teleology of Letters; or, From a 2000

  • I neither said nor meant anything whatever about an "identity crisis" of Hitler's, about any other crisis of Hitler's that was "paradigmatic," or about an "identity crisis of Germany after 1918."

    Springtime for Hitler Binion, Rudolph 1975

  • And some people are what you would call paradigmatic thinkers, they’ve got a paradigm of the way the world works.

    Printing: Interview with David Ray Griffin on the Rob Kall Radio Show 2008

  • And some people are what you would call paradigmatic thinkers, they’ve got a paradigm of the way the world works.

    Interview with David Ray Griffin on the Rob Kall Radio Show 2008

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