empirical

[ em-pir-i-kuhl ]

adjective

1. derived from or guided by direct experience or by experiment, rather than abstract principles or theory:

   Empirical evidence of changes in kelp consumption was gathered by measuring the bite marks in seaweed fronds.

   Synonyms: pragmatic, firsthand, practical

   Antonyms: theoretical, secondhand

2. depending upon experience or observation alone, without using scientific method or theory, and hence sometimes insufficiently authoritative, especially as in medicine:

   That is nothing but an empirical conclusion with no regard for the laws of thermodynamics.

   Synonyms: pragmatic, firsthand, practical

   Antonyms: theoretical, secondhand

3. provable or verifiable by experience or experiment, as scientific laws:

   Theoretical physics is criticized for producing complex concepts that are mathematical, not empirical.

empirical

/ ɛmˈpɪrɪkəl /

adjective

1. derived from or relating to experiment and observation rather than theory
2. (of medical treatment) based on practical experience rather than scientific proof
3. philosophy
   1. (of knowledge) derived from experience rather than by logic from first principles Compare a priori a posteriori
   2. (of a proposition) subject, at least theoretically, to verification Compare analytic synthetic
4. of or relating to medical quackery

noun

1. statistics the posterior probability of an event derived on the basis of its observed frequency in a sample Compare mathematical probability See also posterior probability

empirical

/ ĕm-pîr′ĭ-kəl /

1. Relying on or derived from observation or experiment.

Derived Forms

• emˈpiricalness, noun
• emˈpirically, adverb

Other Words From

• em·pir·i·cal·ly adverb
• em·pir·i·cal·ness noun
• an·ti·em·pir·i·cal adjective
• non·em·pir·i·cal adjective
• o·ver·em·pir·i·cal adjective
• sem·i·em·pir·i·cal adjective
• un·em·pir·i·cal adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of empirical¹

First recorded in 1560–70; empiric + -al ¹

Example Sentences

Yet our understanding of the science of disease and vaccination isn’t a product of “experts” simply winging it; it’s the product of years of empirical data, all available publicly.

From Los Angeles Times

A further interpretability analysis compared a clinical empirical table with the model's output.

From Science Daily

The scientists used a unique empirical dataset, taking data from 40 plots of mature European beech forests across the state of Lower Saxony in Germany.

From Science Daily

They were basing their estimates on estimated complication rates, not empirical data.

From Los Angeles Times

There is also the empirical fact — a very inconvenient one for the news media and the political consultants and polling firms — that presidential public opinion polls have been wrong for many decades.

From Salon

Related Words

• experimental
• factual
• observational