Definitions

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

  • noun The science and art of using all the forces of a nation to execute approved plans as effectively as possible during peace or war.
  • noun The science and art of military command as applied to the overall planning and conduct of large-scale combat operations.
  • noun A plan of action resulting from strategy or intended to accomplish a specific goal. synonym: plan.
  • noun The art or skill of using stratagems in endeavors such as politics and business.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The science of combining and employing the means which the different branches of the art of war afford, for the purpose of forming projects of operations and of directing great military movements; the art of moving troops so as to be enabled either to dispense with a battle or to deliver one with the greatest advantage and with the most decisive results; generalship. ; ;
  • noun The use of artifice, finesse, or stratagem for the carrying out of any project.

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

  • noun The science of military command, or the science of projecting campaigns and directing great military movements; generalship.
  • noun The use of stratagem or artifice.

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

  • noun The science and art of military command as applied to the overall planning and conduct of warfare.
  • noun A plan of action intended to accomplish a specific goal.
  • noun The art of using similar techniques in politics or business.

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

  • noun the branch of military science dealing with military command and the planning and conduct of a war
  • noun an elaborate and systematic plan of action

Etymologies

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

[French stratégie, from Greek stratēgiā, office of a general, from stratēgos, general; see stratagem.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Old French strategie, from Ancient Greek στρατηγία (stratēgia, "office of general, command, generalship"), from στρατηγός (stratēgos, "the leader or commander of an army, a general"), from στρατός (stratos, "army") + ἄγω (ago, "I lead, I conduct").

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Examples

Comments

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  • Let’s play a game. We’ll each name three consecutive outcomes of a coin toss (for example, tails-heads-heads, or THH). Then we’ll flip a coin repeatedly until one of our chosen runs appears. That player wins.

    Is there any strategy you can take to improve your chance of beating me? Strangely, there is. When I’ve named my triplet (say, HTH), take the complement of the center symbol and add it to the beginning, and then discard the last symbol (here yielding HHT). This new triplet will be more likely to appear than mine.

    The remarkable thing is that this always works. No matter what triplet I pick, this method will always produce a triplet that is more likely to appear than mine. It was discovered by Barry Wolk of the University of Manitoba, building on a discovery by Walter Penney.

    From

    October 9, 2010

  • Well, okay--I'll play. I pick HTH.

    October 10, 2010

  • HHT.

    *Tosses coin*

    October 10, 2010

  • H.

    October 10, 2010

  • The reason this works is that the second player beats the first to whatever sequence the first chooses. If the first chose HTH, that begins HT, so any second-player strategy XHT has a 1 in 2 chance of winning one round before HTH comes up. (Rather than the naive 1 in 8 chance of waiting for one or the other triple to turn up.)

    You choose your X to make sure it's not symmetric: that the first player hasn't got the same advantage over your sequence. Their choice ends in TH, so you mustn't let yours begin with that. So choose HHT, not THT.

    October 10, 2010

  • It's your turn.

    October 10, 2010

  • T.

    October 11, 2010

  • T.

    October 11, 2010