empirical

Pluralempiricals

1. 1
   adjective

   Based on or testable by observations made through the senses or through instruments that extend them.

   The team relied on empirical readings gathered from sensors in the field.

   Her conclusions rested on empirical observation rather than on hunches.

   Similarobservational, experimental

   Oppositetheoretical, speculative

2. 2
   adjective

   Based on practical experience rather than on theory.

   His empirical approach valued hands-on results over abstract models.

   The committee preferred empirical findings to purely theoretical arguments.

   Similarpractical, experiential, pragmatic

   Oppositetheoretical

   Note

   Here the experience belongs to a craftsman or a clinician: what practice has taught, not what theory predicts. Herbert Spencer's Education (1861) pictures a village carpenter laying out his work by empirical rules from his apprenticeship. Medicine keeps the sense in empirical therapy, treatment begun on experience before tests name the cause. Unlike the experimental meaning, the knowledge need not have been tested; it has simply worked. Its opposite is theoretical.

3. 3
   adjective

   Able to be verified through scientific experimentation.

   The journal publishes only empirical studies whose results others can reproduce.

   Each empirical claim in the paper was backed by repeatable lab measurements.

   Similarexperimental, verifiable, testable

   Oppositetheoretical, anecdotal

   Note

   Philosophers of science use the word as a test a claim must pass, and it pairs naturally with evidence: a result is demonstrable with empirical evidence. Its two opposites name two different failures. A theoretical claim has not yet faced experiment, and an anecdotal one rests on stories that no experiment controlled. Unlike the broad "observed" meaning, this one asks whether the check could be run again.

4. 4
   nouncountable

   A measurement or result obtained through observation or experiment.

   Each empirical recorded in the log corresponded to a single sensor reading.

   The analysts plotted the empiricals to see how closely they matched the model.

   Similarmeasurement, reading, observation

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