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All words

adjective

heuristic

of or relating to or using a general formulation that serves to guide investigation

In a sentence

Six example sentences with heuristic, each labelled with its topic.

  • The spam filter uses a heuristic rule set rather than a model, flagging any message with eleven links and no subject.

    Technology

  • Shoppers apply a heuristic shortcut when tired, grabbing the second cheapest bottle rather than comparing forty labels.

    Psychology

  • Chess engines once relied on heuristic scoring, adding points for a knight near the center and subtracting for doubled pawns.

    Gaming

  • A heuristic screen, buying only firms with rising dividends, beats most complicated models over long stretches of time.

    Finance

  • Occam's razor is a heuristic principle rather than a proof, guiding which theory to test first and nothing more.

    Philosophy

  • Triage nurses use heuristic rules, treating chest pain plus sweating as urgent before any test result comes back.

    Medicine

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Found in these word lists

Each source is a published word list that contains heuristic. No exam board publishes an official GRE, GMAT or SAT list; GMAT words come from GRE lists and the Academic Word List.

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