Technology

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /tɛkˈnɒləd͡ʒi/

Definitions

1. The application of scientific knowledge and tools to solve practical problems or create useful products and systems
2. The use of scientific principles and tools to develop innovative solutions and create practical applications that improve efficiency and quality of life
3. The process of applying scientific research and engineering techniques to design, create, and improve tools, systems, and methodologies for various human needs

Etymology: The Greek word "tekhnologia" originally meant something quite different from what we mean today. It was a learned term for the systematic treatment of a subject, and the sense that concerns us here was a matter of grammar: a formal study of how the art of language was organised. The Greeks built it from "tekhnē", meaning craft or art, and "-logia", meaning study or discourse, the same "-logy" that appears in biology and theology. English borrowed the word in the early modern period as a learned term, drawing directly on Greek rather than passing through French or Latin. For centuries it remained a scholarly word for the systematic study of the arts and crafts, and it was only in the 19th and 20th centuries that its meaning broadened to cover the machines, methods and engineering practices that we now associate with it. The word's skeleton, a craft plus a study, still points at that original idea: knowledge of how things are made.

Synonyms: innovation, technique

Antonyms: ignorance