Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Same as theoretical.
  • noun Same as theoretics.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Pertaining to theory; depending on, or confined to, theory or speculation; speculative; terminating in theory or speculation: not practical

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Concerned with theories or hypotheses rather than with practical matters.
  • adjective Existing only in theory, not proven in reality.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective concerned primarily with theories or hypotheses rather than practical considerations

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Late Latin theōrēticus, from Ancient Greek θεωρητικός.

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Examples

  • For the record, since I'm starting this carry-over thread, keiths has just refuted the entire paradigm of evolutionary biology and indicted the whole 'culture war' being carried on by posers cloaking themselves in the mantle of science in order to pretend that their consensus theoretic is some kind of OBJECTIVE truth (a.k.a. per this argument 'absolute') about biological evolution.

    Carry-Over Thread 2007

  • I must say I find it pretty ironic that your uber-theoretic is held to 'predict' anything you might find as well as its opposite.

    A Dubious "Opportunity" for IDers 2007

  • I always grow concerned when news networks break out their extra spiffy graphics during War Game time: showing Navy snipers shooting faceless bad guys, troop deployments in a "theoretic" ground invasion of Somalia, etc.

    Allison Kilkenny: Blowback Amnesia 2009

  • "Game studies" doesn't exist in any theoretic sense yet 'theoretic' in the specific 'corpus of knowledge' sense. we're still at a practical and pragmatic stage of understanding of what we do.

    Review of the Research - Good Luck 2005

  • George Eliot addresses this distinction between intellectual and felt understanding a number of times, especially in Middlemarch and Daniel Deronda: there's a difference between purely "theoretic" knowledge (ideas disconnected from feeling and practice) and true knowledge (bound up inseparably with one's relationship to the world).

    Relating 2003

  • George Eliot addresses this distinction between intellectual and felt understanding a number of times, especially in Middlemarch and Daniel Deronda: there's a difference between purely "theoretic" knowledge (ideas disconnected from feeling and practice) and true knowledge (bound up inseparably with one's relationship to the world).

    The Little Professor: 2003

  • And since natural objects are allied to each other by many affinities, every kind of theoretic distribution of them adds to our knowledge by developing some of their analogies.

    The Botanic Garden A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: the Economy of Vegetation Erasmus Darwin 1766

  • One can easily get into a verbal mess at this point, and my own experience with pragmatism 'makes me shrink from the dangers that lie in the word' practical, 'and far rather than stand out against you for that word, I am quite willing to part company with Professor Bergson, and to ascribe a primarily theoretical function to our intellect, provided you on your part then agree to discriminate' theoretic 'or scientific knowledge from the deeper' speculative 'knowledge aspired to by most philosophers, and concede that theoretic knowledge, which is knowledge _about_ things, as distinguished from living or sympathetic acquaintance with them, touches only the outer surface of reality.

    A Pluralistic Universe Hibbert Lectures at Manchester College on the Present Situation in Philosophy William James 1876

  • There is no factual, theoretic, historical or evidentiary basis for –

    Matthew Yglesias » Was Health Reform a Political Blunder? How Could We Know? 2010

  • There is no factual, theoretic, historical or evidentiary basis for “fiscal stimulus” or money dilution as cures for economic disasters.

    Matthew Yglesias » Was Health Reform a Political Blunder? How Could We Know? 2010

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