'Dichotomy' definitions:
Definition of 'dichotomy'
(from WordNet)
noun
Being twofold; a classification into two opposed parts or subclasses; "the dichotomy between eastern and western culture" [syn: dichotomy, duality]
Definition of 'Dichotomy'
From: GCIDE
- Dichotomy \Di*chot"o*my\, n. [Gr. ?, fr. ?: cf. F. dichotomie. See Dichotomous.]
- 1. A cutting in two; a division. [1913 Webster]
- A general breach or dichotomy with their church. --Sir T. Browne. [1913 Webster]
- 2. Division or distribution of genera into two species; division into two subordinate parts. [1913 Webster]
- 3. (Astron.) That phase of the moon in which it appears bisected, or shows only half its disk, as at the quadratures. [1913 Webster]
- 4. (Biol.) Successive division and subdivision, as of a stem of a plant or a vein of the body, into two parts as it proceeds from its origin; successive bifurcation. [1913 Webster]
- 5. The place where a stem or vein is forked. [1913 Webster]
- 6. (Logic) Division into two; especially, the division of a class into two subclasses opposed to each other by contradiction, as the division of the term man into white and not white. [1913 Webster]
Synonyms of 'dichotomy'
From: Moby Thesaurus
- abscission,
- ambiguity,
- ambivalence,
- amputation,
- bifidity,
- biformity,
- bifurcation,
- bipartition,
- bisection,
- branching,
- butchering,
- by two,
- chopping,
- cleavage,
- conjugation,
- cutting,
- cutting in two,
- dimidiation,
- division,
- doubleness,
- doublethink,
- doubling,
- dualism,
- duality,
- duplexity,
- duplication,
- duplicity,
- enucleation,
- equivocality,
- excision,
- fission,
- forking,
- halving,
- in half,
- irony,
- Janus,
- laceration,
- mutilation,
- pairing,
- polarity,
- ramification,
- rending,
- resection,
- ripping,
- scission,
- section,
- severance,
- slashing,
- slicing,
- splitting,
- subdivision,
- surgery,
- tearing,
- twinning,
- two-facedness,
- twoness