Generic
From Wiki @ Karl Jones dot com
The word generic has a wide range of meanings.
Contents
Adjective
The adjective generic may indicate:
- Very comprehensive; pertaining or appropriate to large classes or groups as opposed to specific.
"...the essence is that such self-describing poets describe what is in them, but not peculiar to them, – what is generic, not what is special and individual." — Walter Bagehot (1826–1877)
- Lacking in precision, often in an evasive fashion; vague; imprecise.
- (of a product or drug) Not having a brand name.
- (biology, not comparable) Of or relating to a taxonomic genus.
- (grammar) Specifying neither masculine nor feminine; epicene.
- Words like salesperson and firefighter are generic.
- (computing) (Of a computer program) Written so as to operate on any data type, the type required being passed as a parameter.
- (geometry, of a point) Having coordinates that are algebraically independent over the base field.
Computer programming
In computer programming, uses of generic include:
- Generic function, a computer programming entity made up of all methods having the same name
- Generic programming, a computer programming paradigm based on method/functions or classes defined irrespective of the concrete data types used upon instantiation
- Generics in Java
Linguistics
In linguistics, generic indicates a pronoun or other word used with a less specific meaning, such as:
- generic you
- generic he or generic she
- generic they
- Generic mood, a grammatical mood used to make generalized statements like Snow is white
- Generic antecedents, referents in linguistic contexts, which are classes
Mathematics
In mathematics, uses of generic include:
- Generic filter, a mathematical filter that satisfies specific properties
- Generic point, a special kind of point whose behavior reflects the behavior of a closed subset of an algebraic variety or scheme
- Generic property, a formal definition of a property shared by almost all objects of a certain type
- GENERIC formalism, a mathematical framework to describe irreversible phenomena in thermodynamics
Other
Other uses of generic include:
- Generic role-playing game system, a framework that provides rule mechanics for any setting—world or environment or genre
- Genus, the generic name for classification of an organism in taxonomy
Problem solving
Generic models, methods, principles, etc. may be useful in Problem solving.
