logic

Plurallogics (some meanings)

Formslogics, logicking, logicked

1. 1
   noununcountable

   A way of human thinking that works through a problem in a linear, step-by-step manner, forming the basis of methods such as the scientific method.

   Like following a recipe in order until the meal is finished.

   She walked us through her logic, moving from one premise to the next.

   Good scientific work rests on logic as much as on careful observation.

   Similarreasoning, rationality, reason, sense

   Oppositeirrationality, illogic

2. 2
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The study of what makes reasoning sound: the principles and standards by which an inference or proof is judged valid.

   Aristotle's work laid the foundations of formal logic.

   Students of logic learn to test whether a conclusion really follows from its premises.

   Note

   Philosophers have long divided the field into two branches, deductive and inductive logic. Mark Sainsbury, in Logical Forms (2001), notes that the two have grown so far apart that most people now mean the deductive kind when they say "logic" alone. The word works as a count noun when branches are meant, as in two logics, and as a mass noun for the discipline itself.

3. 3
   nouncountable

   A system of thought, sound or not, especially one associated with a particular person.

   There was a certain twisted logic to the dictator's every move.

   She explained the logic that guided all of her business choices.

   Similarrationale, reasoning, thinking, sense

   Note

   Here logic means whatever reasoning someone happens to follow, sound or not, and it is often used skeptically. It favors possessives and pointers, as in his logic or the logic behind it. It also gives us the retort by that logic, which takes an opponent's reasoning and runs it to an absurd end. Dan Andriacco's Murderers' Row (2020) uses it that way: "By that logic, nobody did it because you didn't see anybody."

4. 4
   noununcountable

   The branch of mathematics that studies rigorous proof and the relationships among precisely defined concepts.

   Modern logic underpins much of the foundations of mathematics.

   Logic provides the rules by which one statement can be proved from others.

   Note

   Mathematicians claim the word for a field of their own: the study of proof itself, and of how statements about rigorously defined concepts follow from one another. Here it stays uncountable, naming a discipline. The formal-system sense takes a plural, so you can study logic in this sense but build a logic in that one.

5. 5
   nouncountable

   Any system that combines a language of any kind with rules of deduction or with a semantics based on model theory.

   First-order logic is the logic most widely used in mathematics.

   Researchers designed a new logic to reason about time and change.

   Note

   A logic in the technical sense can be given from either of two sides. A deductive system says which inferences may be drawn, and a model-theoretic semantics says when its sentences are true. Because each such system is a distinct object, the word takes an article and a plural here: a logic, several logics, first-order logic.

6. 6
   noununcountable

   The electronic part of a system that carries out boolean operations, made up of logic gates or circuits.

   The processor's logic handles millions of boolean operations each second.

   A fault in the logic caused the circuit to give the wrong signal.

   Similarcircuitry

   Note

   An engineer's clipping: a device's logic is short for its logic gates or logic circuit, the hardware that carries out boolean operations. It stays uncountable, so you design the logic for a controller rather than a logic. The boolean operations it performs are the ones the mathematical discipline describes on paper, here built into circuits.

7. 7
   nouncountable

   A system of thought or body of rhetoric, especially one tied to a particular social practice.

   Sociologists describe the logic of consumer culture that drives constant buying.

   Each institution develops a logic that members rarely stop to question.

   Similarideology, ethos, rationale

   Note

   Sociology readily puts the word in the plural. A 2023 study by Alba Rosa Boer Cueva and colleagues identifies "four logics of empowerment," political, economic, social and security. The usual frame is logic(s) of plus a practice. It names the reasoning and rhetoric a social practice runs on, rather than one person's way of thinking, and that is what separates it from a personal system of thought.

8. 8
   verbtransitive

   To apply careful, logical reasoning to a problem or question.

   Don't just logic the decision; consider how people feel too.

   She logicked the schedule until every conflict disappeared.

   Similaranalyze

   Note

   Transitive and neutral in tone, unlike the disparaging intransitive. Here one logics something, and often logics it out. James Ellroy's Blood's a Rover (2010) has "He logicked that one out," where the particle out carries the sense of reasoning a problem through to its answer.

9. 9
   verbtransitive

   To defeat or win over someone by means of logical argument.

   He tried to logic the committee into approving the budget.

   No one could logic her out of a belief she held so firmly.

   Similarargue, reason, talk, persuade

   Note

   Here the reasoning is aimed at a person rather than a problem. You logic someone into agreement or out of a belief, the same frame that verbs like talk and argue use. In Jade Lee's Wicked Surrender (2010), a character has been "logicked into agreement," which shows the into-phrase that gives this sense its meaning of winning someone over.

10. 10
    verbderogatoryintransitive

    To apply logic to an excessive or inappropriate degree.

    Some people logic endlessly, picking apart feelings that simply need to be felt.

    He logicked over the trivial choice until the moment to act had passed.

    Similaroverthink, overanalyze, intellectualize

    Note

    A put-down rather than a description: to logic, used without an object, is to reason past the point where reasoning helps. Its spelling adds a k before endings, giving logicking and logicked, as picnic and panic do. Orestes Augustus Brownson's Controversy (1884) still fences "logicking" in inverted commas, charging an author with logicking against logic itself. Keep it apart from the neutral transitive verb, which simply means reasoning something through.

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