technology
Pluraltechnologies
- 1Machines or equipment produced through the practical application of science.
The lab upgraded its technology to keep pace with competitors.
Manufacturing now relies on technology that didn't exist a generation ago.
UsageFor equipment in general, usually without a: new technology, the latest technology.
- 2The practical use of science and craft in industry, such as in designing new machines.
Advances in technology have transformed how goods are manufactured.
The firm's success rests on applying technology to everyday production problems.
- 3A useful skill or device that humans have developed or invented, including in ages before science.
The plow was a transformative technology for early farming communities.
Writing systems were among the most important technologies humans ever invented.
Similarinvention, innovation
- 4The systematic study of techniques, or a body of techniques considered together as one craft.
The treatise lays out the entire technology of classical fresco painting.
The museum exhibit explains the technology of early papermaking, from pulp to press.
Similartechnique
Note
Here the word stays closest to its Greek parts: tékhnē, "art," and -logía, "study," joined in tekhnología, which first meant a systematic treatment of grammar. Writers use it when they treat a craft as an ordered body of method rather than as machinery. In everyday prose it is easily heard as the industrial meaning, so a phrase like the technology of fresco needs its context.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- Technology derives from Greek tekhnología, combining tékhnē, meaning art, and -logía, meaning study. en.wiktionary.org
- The Greek word originally referred to the systematic treatment of grammar. churchofcyprus.org.cy
Less common meanings
- 5A useful trait that evolution has produced in a living organism, regarded figuratively as nature's engineering.
Echolocation is a remarkable technology that evolution gave to bats.
Photosynthesis is one of the oldest technologies that living things have evolved.
Similaradaptation
Note
A figure of speech that treats evolution as an engineer. Writers can mark the borrowing with scare quotes, as Caspar Henderson does in The Book of Barely Imagined Beings (2012), calling the jellyfish's nematocyst its most impressive 'technology'. Used this way, the word is a deliberate, vivid metaphor. When the literal point is all you need, trait says the same thing plainly.
Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- Caspar Henderson wrote The Book of Barely Imagined Beings, published in 2012. granta.com
- Henderson calls the jellyfish's nematocyst its most impressive 'technology', putting technology in quotation marks. en.wiktionary.org
- 6A discourse or treatise dealing with the arts and their practice.
Note
The book rather than the discipline: a technology in this sense was a written work, which is why it can take an article and a plural. It now belongs to historical writing. A modern reader hears the industrial meaning first, so use it only where the setting makes clear that a treatise is meant. The Greek idea of a systematic treatment lies behind the study of techniques.
Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- Technology historically meant a discourse or treatise on the arts. en.wiktionary.org
- The word's Greek background includes the meaning 'systematic treatment'. en.wikipedia.org
Practice
Can you tell the meanings of technology apart? Answer 3 quick questions from this page, or write your own sentence and AI will check it.
Origin
A learned borrowing from Ancient Greek τεχνολογία (tekhnología), meaning the systematic treatment of grammar, formed from τέχνη (tékhnē, "art") plus -λογία (-logía, "study").
Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 3 facts
- Technology is a learned borrowing from Ancient Greek τεχνολογία (tekhnología). en.wiktionary.org
- Ancient Greek τεχνολογία meant systematic treatment of grammar. en.wiktionary.org
- The Greek formation combines τέχνη (tékhnē), meaning art, and -λογία (-logía), meaning study. en.wiktionary.org