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Wikipedia vs Theory - What's the difference?

wikipedia | theory |

As a proper noun wikipedia

is (l).

As a noun theory is

(obsolete) mental conception; reflection, consideration.

wikipedia

English

Alternative forms

* wikipedia (when used as a common noun)

Proper noun

(s)
  • A free-content online encyclopedia founded in 2001, collaboratively developed over the World Wide Web in a number of languages.
  • * 2011 , , January 12.
  • Civility – translated as savoir-vivre in the French version – is one of the five "pillars" of Wikipedia .
  • The community that develops the Wikipedia encyclopedia.
  • * 2011 , , May 23.
  • In August 2009, Wikipedia announced that it planned a move that many saw as a step away from its freewheeling ethos of anyone can edit.
  • * 2012 , , January 19.
  • Wikipedia mounted a 24-hour protest starting at midnight by converting their English page to a shadowy black background and warning readers that "the U.S. Congress is considering legislation that could fatally damage the free and open Internet."
  • (neologism) A main-belt asteroid (No. ).
  • Derived terms

    * Wikipedian

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A version of the encyclopedia (a free-content online encyclopedia) in a particular language.
  • * 2005 , , December 14.
  • Work in the open-source software community or contribute to wikipedias on your favourite subjects.
  • A wiki or similar collaborative database.
  • *
  • *
  • *
  • (figuratively) A source of abundant encyclopedic knowledge.
  • *
  • *
  • *
  • *
  • Verb

    (en verb)
  • To consult for information.
  • #
  • #* 2004 January 7, Mike Pitt, " Re: (Non-Euros/SAs Only) How did you become a lover of football?", in rec.sport.soccer, Usenet :
  • Did a bit of Wikipediaing :
  • #* 2005 August 18, Edward Cherlin, " Re: Slow Re-entry", in rec.arts.sf.science, Usenet :
  • Is everybody in this group incapable of arithmetic, Googling, and Wikipediaing ?
  • #
  • #* 2006 November 17, Rachel Maddow, on Paula Zahn Now : ][http://groups.google.com/group/alt.religion.scientology/msg/9a83a0db36532600?q=Wikipediaing
  • I mean, it's true, if Katie Holmes had not become engaged to Tom Cruise, we'd all still be Wikipeidaing her, looking her up, trying to figure out exactly why do I know her, what was she in, is she famous?
  • #* 2009 , Roger Ebert, Roger Ebert's Movie Yearbook 2010 , ][http://www.amazon.com/Roger-Eberts-Movie-Yearbook-2010/dp/B003STCR2E Andrews McMeel Publishing, ISBN 978-0-7407-8536-8, page 363:
  • He made me curious enough that I Wikipediaed Bob Satterfield and found out, yes, he was a real fighter, nicknamed the Bombadier, and was KO'd by the Raging Bull himself in a 1946 fight in Wrigley Field.
  • #* 2010 April 7, "Jeff K.", " Like a Drunk One Legged Pirate Stores His Rum, The aTable Stores Your Cords" (blog post), in CraziestGadgets.com:
  • That’s a true fact, you can Wikipedia that shizz.
  • #* 2010 , Rachel Cohn, Very Lefreak , Random House, ISBN 9780375895524, chapter 3:
  • #
  • I wikipediaed the article on science and learned about the scientific method.
  • theory

    English

    Noun

  • (obsolete) Mental conception; reflection, consideration.
  • * 1646 , (Thomas Browne), Pseudodoxia Epidemica , VII.19:
  • As they encrease the hatred of vice in some, so doe they enlarge the theory of wickednesse in all.
  • (sciences) A coherent statement or set of ideas that explains observed facts or phenomena, or which sets out the laws and principles of something known or observed; a hypothesis confirmed by observation, experiment etc.
  • * 2002 , Duncan Steel, The Guardian , 23 May 2002:
  • It was only when Einstein's theory' of relativity was published in 1915 that physicists could show that Mercury's "anomaly" was actually because Newton's gravitational ' theory was incomplete.
  • * 2003 , (Bill Bryson), A Short History of Nearly Everything , BCA, p. 118:
  • The world would need additional decades [...] before the Big Bang would begin to move from interesting idea to established theory .
  • * 2009 , (Richard Dawkins), The Greatest Show On Earth: The Evidence for Evolution , Bantam, p. 10:
  • Scientists and creationists are understanding the word "theory'" in two very different senses. Evolution is a '''theory''' in the same sense as the heliocentric '''theory'''. In neither case should the word "only" be used, as in "only a ' theory ".
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2012-01
  • , author=Michael Riordan , title=Tackling Infinity , volume=100, issue=1, page=86 , magazine= citation , passage=Some of the most beautiful and thus appealing physical theories', including quantum electrodynamics and quantum gravity, have been dogged for decades by infinities that erupt when theorists try to prod their calculations into new domains. Getting rid of these nagging infinities has probably occupied far more effort than was spent in originating the ' theories .}}
  • (uncountable) The underlying principles or methods of a given technical skill, art etc., as opposed to its practice.
  • * 1990 , Tony Bennett, Outside Literature , p. 139:
  • Does this mean, then, that there can be no such thing as a theory of literature?
  • * 1998 , Elizabeth Souritz, The Great History of Russian Ballet :
  • Lopukhov wrote a number of books and articles on ballet theory , as well as his memoirs.
  • (mathematics) A field of study attempting to exhaustively describe a particular class of constructs.
  • Knot theory classifies the mappings of a circle into 3-space.
  • A hypothesis or conjecture.
  • * 1999 , Wes DeMott, Vapors :
  • It's just a theory I have, and I wonder if women would agree. But don't men say a lot about themselves when a short-skirted woman slides out of a car or chair?
  • * 2003 , Sean Coughlan, The Guardian , 21 Jun 2003:
  • The theory is that by stripping costs to the bone, they are able to offer ludicrously low fares.
  • (countable, logic) A set of axioms together with all statements derivable from them. Equivalently, a formal language plus a set of axioms (from which can then be derived theorems).
  • A theory is consistent if it has a model.

    Usage notes

    In scientific discourse, the sense “unproven conjecture” is discouraged (with hypothesis or conjecture preferred), due to unintentional ambiguity and intentional equivocation with the sense “well-developed statement or structure”.

    Synonyms

    * See also

    Holonyms

    * (in logic) formal system

    Meronyms

    * (in logic) axioms

    Derived terms

    * acoustic theory * algorithmic information theory * antenna theory * atomic theory * catastrophe theory * category theory * cell theory * chaos theory * circuit theory * complexity theory * computation theory * control theory * critical theory * decision theory * domino theory * extreme value theory * game theory * giant impact theory * graph theory * group theory * in theory * information theory * kinetic theory of gases * knot theory * literary theory * music theory * number theory * opponent-process theory * phlogiston theory * probability theory * proof theory * quantum field theory * rational choice theory * set theory * signal theory * social theory * systems theory * theory of gravity * theory of relativity * theory of truth * Theory X * Theory Y * type theory * value theory * virtue theory

    See also

    * axiom * postulate * proposition Check translations