radical
IPA: rˈædʌkʌɫ
noun
- (historical, 19th-century Britain) A member of the most progressive wing of the Liberal Party; someone favouring social reform (but generally stopping short of socialism).
- (historical, early 20th-century France) A member of an influential, centrist political party favouring moderate social reform, a republican constitution, and secular politics.
- A person with radical opinions.
- (arithmetic) A root (of a number or quantity).
- (linguistics) In logographic writing systems such as the Chinese writing system, the portion of a character (if any) that provides an indication of its meaning, as opposed to phonetic.
- (linguistics) In Celtic languages, refers to the basic, underlying form of an initial consonant which can be further mutated under the Celtic initial consonant mutations.
- (linguistics) In Semitic languages, any one of the set of consonants (typically three) that make up a root.
- (chemistry) A group of atoms, joined by covalent bonds, that take part in reactions as a single unit.
- (organic chemistry) A free radical.
- (algebra, commutative algebra, ring theory, of an ideal) Given an ideal I in a commutative ring R, another ideal, denoted Rad(I) or √, such that an element x ∈ R is in Rad(I) if, for some positive integer n, xⁿ ∈ I; equivalently, the intersection of all prime ideals containing I.
- (algebra, ring theory, of a ring) Given a ring R, an ideal containing elements of R that share a property considered, in some sense, "not good".
- (algebra, ring theory, of a module) The intersection of maximal submodules of a given module.
- (number theory) The product of the distinct prime factors of a given positive integer.
adjective
- Favoring fundamental change, or change at the root cause of a matter.
- (botany, not comparable) Pertaining to a root (of a plant).
- Pertaining to the basic or intrinsic nature of something.
- Thoroughgoing; far-reaching.
- (lexicography, not comparable) Of or pertaining to the root of a word.
- (phonology, phonetics, not comparable, of a sound) Produced using the root of the tongue.
- (chemistry, not comparable) Involving free radicals.
- (mathematics) Relating to a radix or mathematical root.
- (slang, 1980s & 1990s) Excellent; awesome.
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Examples of "radical" in Sentences
- Even the word radical was a seductive conceptual trap.
- The word radical comes from the Latin word radis, which means roots.
- Obama administration, categorically refuse to even use the term "radical Islam" in order to excise the term from the American vernacular.
- Halsted called this procedure the “radical mastectomy,” using the word radical in the original Latin sense to mean “root”; he was uprooting cancer from its very source.
- Pitch must be considered under three heads: first, as referring to the prevailing elevation of tone assumed by the voice in the reading of a whole sentence, passage, or selection, called _general_ or _sentential pitch_; second, as referring to the degree of elevation assumed by the voice in the utterance of the opening, or radical, of any syllable, called _initial_ or _radical pitch_; third, as referring to the tone-width of the intervals in the utterance of the syllable concrete.
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