Theoretical

Definitions: Theoretical

Theoretical

Adjective

1. Concerned primarily with theories or hypotheses rather than practical considerations; "theoretical science".

2. Concerned with theories rather than their practical applications; "theoretical physics".

3. Based on specialized theory; "a theoretical analysis".

Date "theoretical" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1602. (references)

Synonyms: Theoretical

Synonyms: abstract (adj), theoretic (adj). (additional references)

Antonyms: applied (adj), empirical (adj). (additional references)

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Synonyms within Context: Theoretical

Context	Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus).
Supposition	Adjective: supposing; Verb: given, mooted, postulatory; assumed; Verb: supposititious, suppositive, suppositious; gratuitous, speculative, conjectural, hypothetical, theoretical, academic, supposable, presumptive, putative; suppositional.
Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus.

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Crosswords: Theoretical

English words defined with "theoretical": abstract, academic, applied ♦ Bernoulli distribution, binomial distribution ♦ Dirac, distribution ♦ effective ♦ Gaussian distribution ♦ Hawking ♦ impracticality, Institutes of medicine ♦ Law of universal causation ♦ mean sun, Micella ♦ normal distribution ♦ Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac, Pauli, Point system of type bodies, Poisson distribution, practicality, Pyr- ♦ statistical distribution, statistical mechanics, Stephen Hawking, Stephen William Hawking, Steven Weinberg ♦ theologise, theologize, theoretical account, theoretically ♦ Weinberg, Wolfgang Pauli. (references)

Specialty definitions using "theoretical": accumulative escaping power, amortized cost, Anomalous plasma diffusion, Artificial Life, asymptotically tight bound, available alumina ♦ behavioral science, best fit, big-O notation, bootstrapping ♦ calculated area, Cancer risk, Chapman region, CHEMICAL LABORATORY TECHNICIAN, chi-squared goodness of fit test, computability theory, Consensus Sequence, core recovery ♦ dead time, Debye length, Decision Theory, Detention Time, Dogmatic School ♦ Eddington limit, efficiency of separation, escaping power, Eulerian wind, Euler's equation, Euler's equilibrium condition, expected arrival time, expected cell frequencies, expected time of arrival ♦ fluid parcel, free-air anomaly, freeze-up, Frequency Curve ♦ ice and snow-albedo-temperature feedback, ideal rocket, Information Algebra, Information Technology, informative prior, Instantaneous Unit Hydrograph, Internet Research Task Force, isotropic turbulence ♦ Jungian Theory ♦ kinetic head ♦ LAN party, Lancaster's partition of chi-squares, little-o notation ♦ magnetic anomaly, magnetoionic theory, manometric efficiency, maximum available gain, Metals, Actinoid, moby, model atmosphere, Models, Biological, Models, Educational, Models, Genetic, Models, Immunological, Models, Nursing, Models, Organizational, Models, Psychological, Models, Theoretical ♦ NUCLEAR-FUELS RESEARCH ENGINEER ♦ occurs check, omegaCapital, option-adjusted spread, organic efficiency ♦ Paschen law, perfect plate, PHYSICIST, THEORETICAL, primary school teacher training course, probabilistic algorithm, Prolog-II ♦ radiation physicist, radiological physicist, rated horsepower, Rayleigh atmosphere, RESEARCH ASSOCIATE, risk-free return, rock mechanics ♦ Sather, semi-rigid theory, sim, spurious transmitter output, star facet, Stirling cycle ♦ theoretical fan depression, theoretical frequencies, Theoretical Maximum Residue Contribution, theoretical midpoint, theoretical rocket, theoretical tonnage, theoretical yield, threaded binary tree, total air ♦ underdrilling ♦ velocity head, Vooys process. (references)

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Modern Usage: Theoretical

Domain

Usage

Screenplays

My experiments are only theoretical, completely within legal boundaries. (Lilo & Stitch; writing credit: Chris Sanders)

A black hole is a theoretical object in space. (Eddie; writing credit: Steve Zacharias; Jeff Buhai)

Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

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Commercial Usage: Theoretical

Domain	Title
Books	Bel Canto Theoretical and Practical Vocal Method (reference) A Parameter-Setting Model of L2 Acquisition: Experimental Studies in Anaphora (Studies in Theoretical Psycholinguistics, Vol 5) (reference) Theoretical Astrophysics: Volume 1: Astrophysical Processes (reference) A theoretical and computational study of generalized aliquot sequences (reference) Alterity, Identity, Image. Contributions towards a theoretical perspective. (Amsterdam Studies on Cultural Identity 1) (reference) (more book examples)

Periodicals	Theoretical Chemical Engineering (reference) Theoretical Foundations Of Chemical Engineering (reference) Theoretical Chemistry Accounts : Theory Computation And Modeling (reference) Theoretical Computer Science C-w Science Of Computer Program (reference) Theoretical And Applied Fracture Mechanics (reference) (more periodical examples)

Music	Theoretical Record (reference) (more classical music examples; more popular music examples)
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

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Photo Album: Theoretical

Thumbnail	Description & Credit	Thumbnail	Description & Credit
	Middlesex Hospital, London, England. : Nurses receiving theoretical instruction.Credit: National Library of Medicine.		The strong central core that leads us in our occupations is the Communist Party, the theoretical foundation which guides our thoughts is Marxism and Leninism.Credit: Library of Congress.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

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Familiar Quotations: Theoretical

Author	Quotation
Albert Einstein	No matter how we may single out a complex from nature...its theoretical treatment will never prove to be ultimately conclusive... I believe that this process of deepening of theory has no limits.
William Pitt	Theoretical principals must sometimes give way for the sake of practical advantages.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references.

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Historic Usage: Theoretical

Author	Date	Quotation
Communist Manifesto	1848	The theoretical conclusions of the Communists are in no way based on ideas or principles that have been invented, or discovered, by this or that would-be universal reformer. (reference)
Treaty of Versailles	1919	Officers who have previously belonged to any formations whatever of the Army, and who are not retained in the units allowed to be maintained, must not take part in any military exercise whether theoretical or practical, and will not be under any military obligations whatever. (reference)
Source: compiled by the editor from various references.

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Non-Fiction Usage: Theoretical

Subject	Topic	Quote
Health		Only a select group of mind-body interventions having well-documented theoretical foundations are considered CAM. (references)
		Pregnant women should not be vaccinated because of a theoretical risk that the developing fetus may become infected from the vaccine. (references)
		These studies should be longitudinal and reflect current theoretical and empirical advances in neurolinguistics and psycholinguistics. (references)
Business		E-commerce in practice continues to outpace the theoretical forecasts for its uptake in South Africa. (references)
		In the case of new settlements, far away from urban areas, or extensions of the city plan in the contours of the urban grid, through "integrated building design", the theoretical performance potential of the passive systems can be obtained, with extremely positive results on the building energy demand and comfort conditions. (references)
Civil Liberties	Uzbekistan	In practice the courts ignore the theoretical distinction and frequently convict members of disapproved Muslim groups under both statutes. (references)
	Uzbekistan	A 1996 analysis by foreign legal observers concluded that, while the Law on Political Parties provides theoretical protections for minority parties and permits a wide range of fundraising, it also gives the Ministry of Justice broad powers to interfere with parties and to withhold financial and legal support to those opposed to the Government. (references)
Economic History	United Kingdom	Although Parliament has the theoretical power to make or repeal any law, in actual practice the weight of 700 years of tradition restrains arbitrary actions. (references)
Political Economy	China	Socialism continues to provide the theoretical underpinning of national politics, but Marxist ideology has given way to economic pragmatism and economic decentralization has increased the authority of local officials. (references)
Political Rights	Morocco	The Parliament has the theoretical ability to effect change in the system of government. (references)
Trade	China	An HPC shipped to China after March 20, 2001 is defined as any computer over 85,000 MTOPS (million theoretical operations per second) of performance. (references)
Worker Rights	China	Some observers have interpreted this provision to offer at least a theoretical legal basis for the right to strike. (references)
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits.

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Usage Frequency: Theoretical

"Theoretical" is generally used as an adjective (general or positive) -- approximately 99.80% of the time. "Theoretical" is used about 3,011 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)	99.8%	3,005	3,118
Noun (proper)	0.2%	6	143,867
Total	100.00%	3,011	N/A

Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.

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Expressions: Theoretical

Expressions using "theoretical": theoretical account ♦ theoretical frequencies ♦ theoretical midpoint ♦ theoretical pendulum ♦ theoretical variable. Additional references.
Hyphenated Usage
	Beginning with "theoretical": theoretical-political.
	Ending with "theoretical": class-theoretical, pre-theoretical.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

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Frequency of Internet Keywords: Theoretical

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	Expression	Frequency per Day
theoretical physics	28	model theoretical	3
theoretical biology	18	paper theoretical writing	3
perspective theoretical	13	perspective sociology theoretical	2
framework theoretical	12	theoretical chemistry	2
theoretical yield	12	theoretical mathematics	2
applied genetics theoretical	10	paradigm theoretical	2
new physics theoretical	10	science theoretical	2
biology journal theoretical	9	theoretical mechanics	2
elasticity theoretical	8	change model theoretical	2
theoretical	7	center international physics theoretical	2
sampling theoretical	6	definition framework theoretical	2
probability theoretical	5	conflict resolution review style theoretical	2
international journal physics theoretical	5	equivalent height plate theoretical	2
model set theoretical	4	physics space theoretical time	2
theoretical computer science	4	calculate theoretical yield	2
plate theoretical	4	orientation theoretical	2
physicist theoretical	3	adhd framework theoretical	2
physics position theoretical	3
		adhd framework theoretical	2
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

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Modern Translations: Theoretical

Language		Translations for "theoretical"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses.
Albanian		teorik (academic, academical, armchair, paper, speculative, theoretic). (various references)

Arabic		‏نظري (abstract, academic, notional, paper, perspective, theoretic), ‏غير عملي (academic, impracticable, impractical, platonic, theoretic, unpractical, unwieldy, visionary). (various references)

Bulgarian		теоретически (ideally, theoretic), теоретичен (abstract, doctrinaire, moot, parlor, parlour, platonic, pure, theoretic). (various references)

Chinese		虛�"� (fictitious, virtual), 理论 (Theories, theory). (various references)

Czech		teoretický (academic, doctrinaire, doctrinarian, scholarly, theoretic). (various references)

Danish		teoretisk vaerdi (nominal value, rated value), teoretisk, nominel vaerdi (face value, nominal value, par value, rated value). (various references)

Dutch		theoretisch (abstract, academic, in the abstract). (various references)

Finnish		tietopuolinen, opillinen (scholastic). (various references)

French		théorique (theoretic), théorique, valeur théorique (theoretical value). (various references)

German		theoretisch (abstract, academic, hypothetical, hypothetically, speculatively, theoretic, theoretically, theoreticly). (various references)

Greek		θεωρητικόσ (doctrinaire, notional, speculative, theoretician, theorist). (various references)

Hebrew		תורתי, תאורטי, עיו� י (academic, notional, speculative). (various references)

Hungarian		elméleti (academic, academical, bookish, ideological, platonic, pure, speculative, theoretic). (various references)

Indonesian		teoritis. (various references)

Italian		teorico (theoretic, theoretician, theorist). (various references)

Japanese Kanji		理論的 , 机上 (on the desk). (various references)

Japanese Katakana		きじょう (a rail, aboard an airplane, firm, mount, on horseback, on the desk, stout-hearted), りろ�"てき. (various references)

Korean		이� (Theories, theory). (various references)

Manx		sheiltynagh (conjectural, fanciful, imaginable, imaginary, imaginative, notional, presumable, putative, speculative, speculator, theoretic, theorist, thinkable). (various references)

Papiamen		teorétiko (abstract, academic). (various references)

Pig Latin		eoreticalthay

Portuguese		teorético (theoretic), teórico (academical, bookish, doctrinal, speculative, theoretic, theoretician, theorist, unpractical), teórico, valor teórico (book value, fair value, mathematical value, nominal value, rated value, theoretical value). (various references)

Romanian		teoretic (abstract, academic, academical, notional, notionally, speculative). (various references)

Russian		теоретический (academic, academical, theoretic). (various references)

Serbo-Croatian		teorijski (academical), teoretski (theoretic, theoretically, theory: in theory), teoretičan. (various references)

Spanish		teorético (theoretic), teo/rico (theorist). (various references)

Swedish		teoretisk (abstracts, pure, theoretic). (various references)

Turkish		teorik (abstract, academic, academical, pure, speculative, technical, theoretic), teorík (abstract, academic), nazari (theoretic), nazarí (abstract, academic), kuramsal (abstract, academic, academical, doctrinaire, hypothetic, hypothetical, notional, pure, speculative, theoretic). (various references)

Ukranian		ідеальний (ideal), теоретичний (abstract, academic, platonic, pure, speculative, theoretic), аналітичний (analytic, analytical, divisive). (various references)

Vietnamese		suông (platonic, theoretic), không thực tế (dreamy, illusory, impractical, romantic, theoretic, unpractical, unreal). (various references)

Welsh		damcaniaethol. (various references)
Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references.

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Ancestral Language Translations: Theoretical

Language	Period	Translations
Greek	700 BCE-300 CE	theoretikos. (various references)
Latin	500 BCE-Modern	rationale. (various references)
Late Latin	300-700	theoreticus. (various references)
Source: compiled by the editor from various references.

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Derivations & Misspellings: Theoretical

Derivations
	Words beginning with "theoretical": theoretically. (additional references)
	Words ending with "theoretical": antitheoretical, atheoretical, nontheoretical, untheoretical. (additional references)
Misspellings
	"Theoretical" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: theoratical, theorectical, theorietical, theoritical, theretical, thoretical. (additional references)
Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references).

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Rhyming with "Theoretical"

# of Phoneme Matches	Pronunciation	Word(s) rhyming with "theoretical" (pronounced thē'ere"tikul)
7	-er e" t i k u l	heretical.
6	-e" t i k u l	alphabetical, antithetical.
5	-t i k u l	acoustical, analytical, apolitical, astronautical, critical, dialectical, ecclesiastical, egotistical, elliptical, fanatical, geopolitical, hypercritical, hypocritical, identical, logistical, mathematical, mystical, nonpolitical, optical, pharmaceutical, problematical, sabbatical, statistical, tactical, testicle, uncritical, vertical, viatical.
4	-i k u l	archaeological, archeological, astrological, astronomical, asymmetrical, atypical, autobiographical, bicycle, biographical, biological, biomedical, biotechnological, botanical, categorical, cervical, chronological, classical, comical, conical, cubicle, cyclical, cylindrical, cynical, dermatological, diabolical, ecological, economical, ecumenical, electrical, electrochemical, electromechanical, empirical, encyclical, epidemiological, eschatological, ethical, ethnical, evangelical, galenical, geographical, geological, geometrical, graphical, gynecological, helical, historical, hysterical, icicle, ideological, illogical, immunological, inimical, ironical, lackadaisical, lexical, liturgical, logical, lyrical, magical, mechanical, metallurgical, metaphorical, metaphysical, methodological, metrical, morphological, musical, mythological, neoclassical, neurological, nonelectrical, nonsensical, nonsurgical, nontechnical, ontological, ornithological, paradoxical, pathological, pedagogical, periodical, petrochemical, pharmacological, philosophical, phonological, physical, physiological, popsicle, preclinical, prototypical, psychical, psychological, puritanical, rabbinical, radiological, rhetorical, semiclassical, semicylindrical, semitropical, serological, sociological, spherical, stereotypical, strategical, surgical, symmetrical, technical, technological, teleological, theatrical, theological, topical, toxicological, tricycle, tropical, typographical, tyrannical, umbilical, uneconomical, unethical, untypical, vehicle, virological, whimsical, zoological.
3	-k u l	aeronautical, agrochemical, allegorical, anarchical, anatomical, ankle, anthropological, article, barnacle, biblical, bifocal, biochemical, brickle, buckle, cackle, chemical, Chronicle, chuckle, circle, clavicle, clerical, clinical, commonsensical, coracle, cortical, crackle, cuticle, cycle, debacle, diacritical, domical, ducal, encircle, epochal, equivocal, etymological, farcical, fecal, fickle, fiscal, focal, follicle, freckle, geophysical, gonococcal, grackle, grammatical, granduncle, hackle, heckle, heterocercal, hierarchical, honeysuckle, Huckle, hypothetical, impractical, jackal, knuckle, local, maniacal, matriarchal, medical, meikle, meteorological, methodical, Mickle, miracle, monocle, motorcycle, muckle, mythical, nautical, nickel, Nickle, Nicol, numerical, obstacle, Oracle, oratorical, particle, patriarchal, photochemical, pickle, pinnacle, polemical, political, pontifical, practical, pumpernickel, quizzical, radical, ramshackle, rankle, rascal, receptacle, reciprocal, recycle, ruckle, runkle, satirical, shackle, shekel, sickle, skeptical, Sokol, sparkle, speckle, spectacle, sprinkle, stickle, suckle, tabernacle, tackle, tentacle, tickle, tinkle, trickle, twinkle, typical, uncle, unequivocal, unicycle, unshackle, vocal, Winkle, wrinkle.
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits.

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Anagrams: Theoretical

Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams
	Words within the letters "a-c-e-e-h-i-l-o-r-t-t"
	-1 letter: hectoliter.
	-2 letters: charlotte, heretical, heterotic, theoretic, tracheole, trochleae.
	-3 letters: acrolith, aerolite, aerolith, aetheric, athletic, catheter, chattier, chelator, chlorate, chlorite, clothier, corelate, erotical, etiolate, heroical, hetaeric, hotelier, laterite, leachier, literate, loricate, raclette, reclothe, relocate, tetchier, theatric, theocrat, thetical, tolerate, tractile, trochlea.
	-4 letters: achiote, airhole, aloetic, ariette, article, atelier, athlete, calorie, calotte, cariole, cattier, chariot, charlie.
	Words containing the letters "a-c-e-e-h-i-l-o-r-t-t"
	+1 letter: atheoretical.
	+2 letters: heterothallic, tetrachloride, theoretically, untheoretical.
	+3 letters: nontheoretical, tetrachlorides.
	+4 letters: anticholesterol, antitheoretical, atherosclerotic.
	+5 letters: electrotherapies, orthogenetically, thermometrically.
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.