Noun

(en noun)

An example serving as a model or pattern; a template.

* 2000 , "":

According to the Fourth Circuit, “Coca-Cola” is “the paradigm of a descriptive mark that has acquired secondary meaning”.

* 2003 , Nicholas Asher and Alex Lascarides, Logics of Conversation , Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0 521 65058 5, page 46:

DRT is a paradigm example of a dynamic semantic theory,

(linguistics) A set of all forms which contain a common element, especially the set of all inflectional forms of a word or a particular grammatical category.

The paradigm of "go" is "go, went, gone."

A system of assumptions, concepts, values, and practices that constitutes a way of viewing reality.

A conceptual framework—an established thought process.

A way of thinking which can occasionally lead to misleading predispositions; a prejudice. A route of mental efficiency which has presumably been verified by affirmative results/predictions.

A philosophy consisting of ‘top-bottom’ ideas (namely biases which could possibly make the practitioner susceptible to the ‘confirmation bias’).

Noun

(uncountable, archaic) Verbal exchange, conversation.

* 1847 , , (Jane Eyre), Chapter XVIII

Two or three of the gentlemen sat near him, and I caught at times scraps of their conversation across the room. At first I could not make much sense of what I heard; for the discourse of Louisa Eshton and Mary Ingram, who sat nearer to me, confused the fragmentary sentences that reached me at intervals.

(uncountable) Expression in words, either speech or writing.

* {{quote-magazine, date=2012-03

, author= , title=Pixels or Perish , volume=100, issue=2, page=106 , magazine= citation , passage=Drawings and pictures are more than mere ornaments in scientific discourse . Blackboard sketches, geological maps, diagrams of molecular structure, astronomical photographs, MRI images, the many varieties of statistical charts and graphs: These pictorial devices are indispensable tools for presenting evidence, for explaining a theory, for telling a story.}}

(countable) A formal lengthy exposition of some subject, either spoken or written.

The preacher gave us a long discourse on duty.

(countable) Any rational expression, reason.

* South

difficult, strange, and harsh to the discourses of natural reason

* Shakespeare

Sure he that made us with such large discourse , / Looking before and after, gave us not / That capability and godlike reason / To rust in us unused.

(social sciences, countable) An institutionalized way of thinking, a social boundary defining what can be said about a specific topic (after ).

* 2007 , Christine L. Marran, Poison Woman: Figuring Female Transgression in Modern Japanese Culture (page 137)

Furthermore, it should be recalled from the previous chapter that criminological discourse of the 1930s deemed every woman a potential criminal, implicitly including the domestic woman.

* 2008 , Jane Anna Gordon, Lewis Gordon, A Companion to African-American Studies (page 308)

But equally important to the emergence of uniquely African-American queer discourses is the refusal of African-American movements for liberation to address adequately issues of sexual orientation and gender identity.

(obsolete) Dealing; transaction.

* Beaumont and Fletcher

Good Captain Bessus, tell us the discourse / Betwixt Tigranes and our king, and how / We got the victory.