Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.

Definition: Approximate |
ApproximateAdjective1. Not quite exact or correct; "the approximate time was 10 o'clock"; "a rough guess"; "a ballpark estimate". 2. Very close in resemblance; "sketched in an approximate likeness"; "a near likeness". 3. Located close together; "with heads close together"; "approximate leaves grow together but are not united". Verb1. Be close or similar; "Her results approximate my own". 2. Form an opinion about; judge tentatively; form an estimate of, esp. quantities or time; "I estimate this chicken to weigh at three pounds". Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "approximate" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1762. (references) |
| Domain | Definition |
Health | Approximal. (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
The scientific method is carried out with a constant interaction between scientific laws (theory) and empirical measurements, which are constantly compared to one another.The most common versions of philosophy of science accept that empirical measurements are always approximations - they do not perfectly represent what is being measured.
The history of science indicates that the scientific laws commonly felt to be true at any time in history are only approximations to some deeper set of laws. Each time a newer set of laws is proposed, it is required that in the limiting situations in which the older set of laws were tested against experiments, the newer laws are nearly identical to the older laws, to within the measurement uncertainties of the older measurements. This is the correspondence principle.
See also orders of approximation.
Approximation theory is a branch of mathematics, a quantitative part of functional analysis. Diophantine approximation deals with approximation to real numbers by rational numbers.
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Approximation."
| The following table is compiled from various sources, across various languages. When English abbreviations or acronyms come from a non-English source, this is noted. | |||
| Entry | Source | Expression | Field |
| APRX | English | Approximate | Transportation |
Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |||
Synonyms: ApproximateSynonyms: approximative (adj), ballpark (adj), close together(p) (adj), near (adj), rough (adj), come close (v), estimate (v), gauge (v), guess (v), judge (v). (additional references) |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Approach | Verb: approach, approximate, appropinquate; near; get near, go near, draw near; come to close quarters, come near; move towards, set in towards; drift; make up to; gain upon; pursue; tread on the heels of; bear up; make the land; hug the shore, hug the land. |
Nearness | Verb: be near; Adjective: adjoin, hang about, trench on; border upon, verge upon; stand by, approximate, tread on the heels of, cling to, clasp, hug; huddle; hang upon the skirts of, hover over; burn. |
Similarity | Verb: be similar; Adjective: look like, resemble, bear resemblance; smack of, savor of; approximate; parallel, match, rhyme with; take after; imitate; favor, span. |
Render similar; Adjective: assimilate, approximate, bring near; connaturalize, make alike; rhyme, pun. | |
Approximate, much the same, near, close, something like, sort of, in the ballpark, such like; a show of; mock, pseudo, simulating, representing. | |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
| Domain | Title | ||
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Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit | Thumbnail | Description & Credit |
![]() | Route map showing the routes of Shackleton and Amundsen in the quest for the . Pole. Titled: "Approximate bird's eye view, drawn from the first telegraphic account." In: "The South Pole", by Roald Amundsen, 1872-1928. Volume I, page 1, Library Call Number M82.1/99 A529s . Credit: Treasures of the Library. | ![]() | Rookery Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve. Key Island After -- Australia n pines were removed from the coastal strand adjacent to the beach. Approximate ly 8,000 native plants, comprising 15 different species, were reintroduced to the island's scrub and hammock habitats, and many other native plants have recolonized naturally. Credit: National Estuarine Research Reserve System (NERR). |
![]() | Artist's conception by Bruno Figallo, October 1948, showing the ship's approximate planned configuration as of that time. Many details, among them the location of smoke stacks, elevators and the retractable bridge, were then still not finally decided. This carrier was laid down at Newport News, Virginia, on 18 April 1949 and cancelled by the Secretary of Defense a few days later. Credit: NAVY. | ![]() | Geometric figure of earth, sun, and moon calculated by Aristarchus to approximate real scale of the solar system. Credit: Library of Congress. |
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits. | |||
| Author | Quotation |
Christian Nevell Bovee | Example has more followers than reason. We unconsciously imitate what pleases us, and approximate to the characters we most admire. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | |
| Author | Date | Quotation |
Brown v. Board of Education | 1954 | Even in the North, the conditions of public education did not approximate those existing today. (reference) |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| Title | Author | Quote |
Les Miserables | Hugo, Victor | Five millions is the most moderate of the approximate figures which the estimates of special science give |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Health | Thus, the approximate number of new patients in the United States each year in the conventionally defined high-risk group is 55,000 colon cancer patients and 20,000 rectal cancer patients. (references) | |
Business | Advertising rates generally approximate those of large international cities. (references) | |
LMDS, offering greater bandwidth and speed has an approximate cost of $2,000 per subscriber. (references) | ||
U.S. firms have an estimated approximate 30-35 percent share of the total computer services market. (references) | ||
Economic History | Turkey | The following data gives the approximate market size for ACE services. (references) |
Latvia | The approximate amount of annual timber harvest is 8.3 million cubic meters. (references) | |
Saudi Arabia | American products, seen as top of the market, hold an approximate 66% market share. (references) | |
Political Economy | SPAIN | Spanish patent, copyright, and trademark laws all approximate or exceed EU levels of intellectual property protection. (references) |
SOUTH AFRICA | Unions in South Africa have an approximate membership of 3.3 million or 31 percent of those employed in the wage economy. (references) | |
Kuwait | In approximate terms, within a total population of 2.2 million there are 860,000 citizens and a large middle class; 36,000 upper-income households reportedly have liquid assets in excess of $500,000. Citizens enjoy one of the highest standards of living in the world, and receive subsidized housing, childcare, food allowances, and free education. (references) | |
Trade | Sri Lanka | The national security levy on imports is determined after the CIF value, plus import duties, have been marked up by an additional 25 percent to reflect the approximate market price. (references) |
Travel | Oman | These dates are approximate. (references) |
Nicaragua | Approximate cost per minute is 26 U.S. cents. (references) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| "Approximate" is generally used as an adjective (general or positive) -- approximately 68.45% of the time. "Approximate" is used about 431 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Adjective (general or positive) | 68.45% | 295 | 16,921 |
| Lexical Verb (infinitive) | 21.81% | 94 | 33,845 |
| Lexical Verb (base form) | 8.12% | 35 | 58,339 |
| Noun (singular) | 1.16% | 5 | 157,705 |
| Noun (proper) | 0.46% | 2 | 245,945 |
| Total | 100.00% | 431 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expressions using "approximate": approximate absolute temperature scale ♦ Approximate quantities ♦ approximate range ♦ approximate to ♦ approximate value. Additional references. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day |
approximate | 7 |
approximate string matching | 5 |
approximate symbol | 3 |
actual approximate time | 2 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Language | Translations for "approximate"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Afrikaans | benader (approach). (various references) | |
Albanian | afrohem (advance, approach, border on, close in, close on, come close, come closer, come on, draw near, gain on, impend, make up, near, nigh, verge), që ngjan (affined), i përafërt (rough). (various references) | |
Arabic | متقارب (convergent), قارب (bark, boat, border, canoe, dinghy, ship, skiff), تقريبي (sacrificial). (various references) | |
Bulgarian | приблизително верен, приблизителен (approximative, near, proximate, round, rude), приближавам се (approach, converge, draw near, drive up, pull in, walk up). (various references) | |
Chinese | 近似 (Analogous, Approximative), 概 (general), 大概 (about, probably, rough, roughly). (various references) | |
Czech | přibližný (crude), přiblížit (bring near). (various references) | |
Danish | approksimal- (rough), approksimal. (various references) | |
Dutch | benaderen (approach). (various references) | |
Esperanto | proksimuma, kalkuli proksimume. (various references) | |
Farsi | نزدیک کردن , نزدیک امدن (Approach), تقریبی (Proximate). (various references) | |
Finnish | arvionmukainen (rough), ylimalkainen (casual, general, haphazard, rough), likimääräinen (rough). (various references) | |
French | approximatif, ressembler , rapprocher de, proche de, peu près de, environ (approximately), être proche (approach). (various references) | |
German | annähernd (about, abroad, almost, approx, approximately, rough, roughly). (various references) | |
Greek | κατά προσέγγιση (about), προσεγγίζω (approach, touch at, verge, verge on), περίπου (about, approximately, circa, in the region of, opus so, or so, pretty much, some), πλησιάζων (oncoming, stalker), πλησιάζω (accost, approach, close in, close with, come up to, draw on, near, step up). (various references) | |
Hebrew | מקורב (familiar, favourite, proximal), לשער (assume, conjecture, suppose, surmise), ל"תקרב (approach, draw near, near), ערך משוער, בקרוב ל-. (various references) | |
Hungarian | megközelítő (proximate, rough, rough estimate), közelítő (impending, oncoming), hozzávetőleges (at a rough estimate, on a rough estimate, rough, rough estimate). (various references) | |
Italian | approssimato (proximate), approssimativo (imprecise, rough, sketchy, superficial). (various references) | |
Japanese Kanji | 近似値 (approximation), 近似 (proximate). (various references) | |
Japanese Katakana | き"じち (approximation), き"じ (attendance upon another, attendant, gold or gilt letters, proximate, recent events, recently). (various references) | |
Korean | 대략 (Approximately). (various references) | |
Manx | faggyssagh. (various references) | |
Norwegian | omtrentlig. (various references) | |
Pig Latin | approximateay.(various references) | |
Portuguese | aproximado (near, proximate). (various references) | |
Romanian | aproximativ (about, approx., approximately, approximative, at a rough estimate, circa, general, much, near, nearly, or so, quasi, rough, roughly, round, roundabout, some, thereabouts), aproxima (estimate), apropia (accede, approach, bring near), se apropia (advance, approach, brew, close in, close up, come, come on, draw, draw near, draw on, drive up, near), fi aproape de (border, verge). (various references) | |
Russian | находящийся близко, аппроксимировать приближенный (aproximate), приблизительный (broad-brush), приближаться (approach, approached, aproached, converge, draw near, near, nigh, verge), почти равняться. (various references) | |
Serbo-Croatian | aproksimativan, približno odgovarati, približiti se (approach, bring closer, get on to, near), približan (rough, round). (various references) | |
Spanish | aproximado (close, loose, proximate, rough). (various references) | |
Swedish | ungefärlig (about, approximately, rough, rough and ready). (various references) | |
Turkish | andırmak (approach, flavor of, flavour of, imitate, partake, remind, remind of, savor of, savour of), yaklaşmak (approach, be pushing, bear down on, close, come close to, come near, come on, come up, converge, draw, draw close, draw near, draw on, get hotter, get warmer, go on for, near, push, step up, verge, walk up, walk up to), yaklaşık (about, approximative, circa, just about, proximate, rough, some, well nigh), yakın (adjacent, akin, akin to, at hand, by, close, close to, close-rage, connate, connected, connection, connexion, contiguous, convenient, familiar, handy, hard, hard by, immediate, imminent, inseparable, intimate, near, near at hand, nigh, not far, pending, proximate, relative, thick, within reach, within walking distance), benzer (alike, analogic, analogical, analogous, analogue, closely, conformable, congener, congenerous, connate, correlative, counterpart, double, homeo-, homo-, homoeo-, homologous, image, in common, indistinguishable, kindred, like, look alike, match, of a piece, parallel, same, similar, simulant, stand in, vicinal), benzemek (appear, approach, be similar, bear resemblance to, compare, correspond, dovetail, Favor, favour, have an air of, have resemblance to, look alike, look like, match, mimic, promise, remind, remind of, resemble, resemble smb. in looks, seem, take after, take on, throw back). (various references) | |
Ukrainian | схожий (affined, akin, alike, analogous, cognate, compatible, like, near, resemblant, similar), наближений (approximative), наближатися (approach, appropinquate, be anear, come near, draw, near, nigh, verge, wear), наближати (advance, anticipate, appropinquate), зближувати, бути приблизно точним, близький (agnate, akin, allied, congenial, contiguous, familiar, intimate, near, nearby, neighbor, neighbour, nigh), приблизно точний, приблизний (approximative, proximate, round). (various references) | |
Vietnamese | giống hệt với xấp xỉ, gần đúng rất gần nhau, $approximate to$ giống với. (various references) | |
Welsh | agosa/u (approach, draw near), agos (almost, near, nigh). (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "approximate": approximated, approximately, approximates. (additional references) | |
| |
"Approximate" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: appoximate, approxiate, approxicate, approximae, approximatel, approximaty, approxiomate, approxmate, aproximat, aproximate. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "approximate" (pronounced uprÄ"ksumut or uprÄ"ksumā't) |
| 9 | -p r Ä" k s u m u t | proximate. |
| 5 | -s u m u t | consummate. |
| 4 | -u m u t | animate, illegitimate, inanimate, estimate, guesstimate, intimate, legitimate, ultimate. |
| 3 | -m u t | climate, comet, gamut, helmet, hermit, limit, microclimate, plummet, summit, vomit. |
| 5 | -s u m ā' t | decimate. |
| 4 | -u m ā' t | amalgamate, acclimate, automate, glutamate, overestimate, underestimate. |
| 3 | -m ā' t | checkmate, classmate, dichromate, inmate, playmate, primate, roommate, schoolmate, shipmate, stalemate, teammate. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "a-a-e-i-m-o-p-p-r-t-x" | |
-2 letters: ametropia, proximate. | |
-3 letters: expiator, toxaemia. | |
-4 letters: amirate, apteria, emporia, meropia, pampero, parapet, periapt, premixt, primate, toxemia. | |
-5 letters: amrita, aortae, appear, armpit, export, imaret, impart, import, mapper, matrix, mopier, mopper, moppet, opiate, optima, optime, pamper, paramo, permit, pirate, potpie, preamp, premix, pretax, prompt, protea, protei, ramate, remixt, tamari, tamper, tapper, tipper, topper, trompe. | |
| Words containing the letters "a-a-e-i-m-o-p-p-r-t-x" | |
+1 letter: approximated, approximates. | |
+2 letters: approximately, approximative. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Commercial | 5. Images: Photo Album 6. Quotations: Familiar 7. Quotations: Historic 8. Quotations: Fiction | 9. Quotations: Non-fiction 10. Usage Frequency 11. Expressions 12. Expressions: Internet | 13. Translations: Modern 14. Abbreviations 15. Acronyms 16. Derivations | 17. Rhymes 18. Anagrams 19. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.