Sorites

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A logical puzzle in which removing one grain at a time from a heap seems never to end the heap ; a chain of reasoning built from many small steps that each look harmless
2. The classic paradox about vagueness where a heap stays a heap after each single grain is taken away ; an argument that moves through many tiny incremental steps toward an absurd conclusion
3. A philosophical sorites puzzle concerning when a pile stops being a pile ; a stepwise argument whose individually plausible premises accumulate into a dubious result

Etymology: Ancient Greek logicians had a puzzle that still bears the name of a heap. Take a heap of grain and remove a single grain: it is still a heap. Remove another, and it is still a heap. Repeat the removal long enough and you are left with one grain, which no one would call a heap, yet every step looked harmless. The Greek word "sōritēs" was the name for this argument, built from "sōros", meaning "heap". It was a paradox of vagueness, a problem about how a plain word like "heap" can have no sharp boundary. The Latin "sōrītēs" carried the Greek term over into the scholastic logic of the Middle Ages, and English borrowed it from Latin as a technical word for the argument. Because the form is the Latin version of the Greek, it kept the older logical sense rather than acquiring a general one.