empirical
If knowledge is empirical, it's based on observation rather than theory. To do an empirical study of donut shops, you'll need to visit every one you can find.
Empirical looks like empire but comes from a completely different origin: it is from the Greek empeirikos, meaning "experienced." It was originally used in medicine for doctors making choices based on observation and experiment rather than theoretical ideas. It's now used for any kind of knowledge that comes from experience. You can meditate all day on the origins of donuts, but until you visit the donut bakery you'll lack empirical knowledge of donut creation.
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derived from experiment and observation rather than theory“an empirical basis for an ethical theory”“empirical laws”“empirical data”“an empirical treatment of a disease about which little is known”synonyms: empirica posteriorirequiring evidence for validation or supportconfirmable, falsifiable, verifiablecapable of being tested (verified or falsified) by experiment or observationexperimentalof the nature of or undergoing an experimentsemiempiricalrelying to some extent on observation or experimenttrial-and-errortrying out various means or theories until error is satisfactorily reduced or eliminatedantonyms:theoreticalconcerned primarily with theories or hypotheses rather than practical considerationsabstractiveof an abstracting nature or having the power of abstractinga prioribased on hypothesis or theory rather than experimentcircumstantial, conjectural, divinatory, hypothetic, hypothetical, supposed, suppositional, suppositious, supposititiousbased primarily on surmise rather than adequate evidencemetaphysicalhighly abstract and overly theoreticaltheory-basedbased in theory rather than experiment
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relying on medical quackerysynonyms: empiric
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Vocabulary lists containing empirical
Here are 68 Tier 2 words that are likely to be found on the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) ELA exams for 6th - 11th grades. These words may show up in the reading passages, but you are more likely to encounter them in the test questions and possible answers.
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How can you perform well on the reading section of the SAT if you don’t fully understand the language being used in the directions and in the questions? Learn this list of 25 words that are based on our analysis of the words likely to appear in question stems, answer options, and test directions. Following our Roadmap to the SAT? Head back to see what else you should be learning this week.