procedure
Pluralprocedures
- 1
- 2A particular method or technique used for performing a task.
Each lab has its own procedure for calibrating the instruments.
She developed a clever procedure for sorting the files quickly.
Similarmethod, technique, process, system, approach
Note
The general sense, and the one the word's history explains best. It comes from French procédure, from Latin procedere, "to go forward," the same root as proceed. A procedure is how a task goes forward, one stage after the next. It is usually followed by for and a gerund, as in a procedure for calibrating or a procedure for sorting. It works both as a countable noun and as an uncountable one.
- 3The set of established forms and methods that an organization follows to accomplish its tasks.
Parliamentary procedure governs how motions are debated and voted on.
The committee revised its procedure for approving new members.
Similarpractice, protocol, process
Note
Here the word becomes a mass noun and usually drops its article: you follow procedure. The bare form points to an institution's rulebook rather than to one person's way of working, which is why it pairs so easily with named bodies, as in parliamentary procedure. Put an article back, a procedure, and the meaning slides toward a single method.
- 4A surgical operation carried out on a patient, often in a hospital or clinic.
The surgeon described the procedure as routine and low-risk.
Patients usually go home the same day after this minor procedure.
Note
Medicine narrows the general method to one thing done to a patient's body. It is a broader, more neutral word than operation, and it gathers its own adjectives: a minor procedure, a routine procedure. Patients undergo or have a procedure; surgeons perform one.
- 5
- 6A named block of program code that performs a specific task without returning a value.
The procedure updates the database and then logs the change.
Each procedure handles one step of the setup routine.
Similarsubroutine, routine
Note
In programming the word is defined by what it does not hand back. A function returns a value to the code that called it. A procedure carries out its task, such as updating a record or writing a log, and returns nothing. The distinction matters in languages that keep the two kinds apart. Elsewhere, subroutine is the umbrella term that covers both.
Less common meaning
- 7Something that results from a process; an outcome, issue, or product.
There is not any known Substance, but Earth, and the Procedure of Earth (as Tile, Stone, &c.) that yeeldeth any Moss or Herby Substance.
1627, Francis [Bacon], Sylua SyluarumNote
This is what goes forward out of something, taken literally: the root behind the general sense, turned to mean the thing produced. Francis Bacon uses it in 1627 for the products of earth, "as Tile, Stone, &c." The sense is obsolete, so a modern reader meets it only in older prose. There it should be read as issue or product, never as a method, and it is not one to revive.
Practice
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Origin
From French procédure, which came through Old French from Latin procedere ("to go forward, proceed").