• System

    Pronunciation

    • IPA: /ˈsɪstÉ™m/
    • Hyphenation: sys + tem

    Origin

    From late Latin systēma, from Ancient Greek σύστημα (sustēma, "organised whole, body"), from σύν (syn, "with, together") + ἵστημι (histēmi, "I stand").

    Full definition of system

    Noun

    system

    (plural systems)
    1. A collection of organized things; as in a solar system.
      • 2013, Charles T. Ambrose, Alzheimer’s Disease, Similar studies of rats have employed four different intracranial resorbable, slow sustained release systems—surgical foam, a thermal gel depot, a microcapsule or biodegradable polymer beads.
    2. A way of organising or planning.
      • 2012, John T. Jost, Social Justice: Is It in Our Nature (and Our Future)?, He draws eclectically on studies of baboons, descriptive anthropological accounts of hunter-gatherer societies and, in a few cases, the fossil record. With this biological framework in place, Corning endeavors to show that the capitalist system as currently practiced in the United States and elsewhere is manifestly unfair.
    3. Many people believed communism was a good system until the breakup of the Soviet Union.
    4. A whole composed of relationships among the members.
    5. (music) A set of staffs that indicate instruments or sounds that are to be played simultaneously.
    6. (mathematics) A set of equations involving the same variables, which are to be solved simultaneously.
    © Wiktionary