tactic

Pluraltactics

1. 1
   nouncountable

   A maneuver or action calculated to achieve a particular end.

   Delaying the vote was a tactic to let tempers cool before the decision.

   Her favorite negotiating tactic is silence.

   Similarplan, scheme, maneuver, stratagem

   Note

   The everyday sense, and the one the others narrow down: Greek taktikós, "fit for ordering," from tássō, "to order, to arrange." A tactic is an action arranged with an end in view. Scheme and stratagem are close neighbors but hint at cunning. Tactic is the plainest of the set, as neutral as plan or course of action.

2. 2
   nouncountable

   In military use, a maneuver employed against an enemy.

   The feigned retreat was a tactic the cavalry had used for centuries.

   Night raids became the guerrillas' most effective tactic against the convoys.

   Similarmaneuver, stratagem, ploy

   Note

   Military writers draw the line that gives this use its edge. Tactics is the handling of forces in contact with the enemy, and strategy is the planning of a whole campaign. An ambush or a flanking march is a tactic, while choosing where to fight the war is strategy. Here the root idea behind the everyday sense turns literal: troops set in order.

3. 3
   nouncountable

   In chess, a sequence of moves that limits the opponent's options and yields an immediate, concrete advantage, usually material.

   The whole game turned on a single tactic: a knight fork of king and rook.

   Strong players calculate every tactic on the board before choosing a quiet move.

   Similarcombination

   Note

   On the chessboard the word turns concrete and calculable. Forks, pins, skewers and discovered attacks are its standard devices, each worked out a few moves ahead. Players set tactics against positional, long-term strategy, the same contrast the military meaning draws between engagement and campaign. A position is called "tactical" when such calculation dominates it.

4. 4
   adjective

   In chemistry, describing a polymer whose repeat units are identical in configuration.

   Tactic polypropylene packs into crystals far more readily than the random form.

   The catalyst was chosen because it yields a tactic chain rather than a jumbled one.

   Similarstereoregular

   Oppositeatactic

   Note

   Polymer chemists call the underlying property tacticity. An isotactic chain has every repeat unit in the same configuration, and a syndiotactic one alternates in a regular pattern. Both count as tactic. An atactic chain, whose configurations fall at random, does not. Like other classifying terms it is not graded: a chain either is tactic or it is not.

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