empirical
- 01 C2 Proficiency
a piece of information or a measurement that comes from a real experiment.
a measurement, finding, or result obtained through empirical methods.
Simple“The scientist recorded each empirical in her notebook during the trial.”
In context“The researcher treated each empirical as a discrete data point, refusing to let existing theories bias the interpretation of the raw measurements.”
UsageRarely used as a noun in general English; almost exclusively found in technical scientific literature.
Synonymsfindingdatum
Usage appreciation empirical · empirical analysis · empirical approach
“Despite its importance, however, the hypothesis had rarely been evaluated using large empirical datasets spanning a broad range of insects.”
“While it seems obvious that personality influences whether you become friends with someone , there is almost no empirical research on the topic.”
From empiric + -al.
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.