Generic

The word generic has a wide range of meanings.

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.

See also

• Ad hoc
• Adjective
• Problem solving

External links

• generic @ Wiktionary