synthesis

Pronunciation

• IPA: /ˈsɪnθəsɪs/^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin synthesis (“collection, set; composition of a medicine”),^[2][3][4] from Ancient Greek σύνθεσις (súnthesis, “composition, putting together”),^[2][3][4][5] from συντίθημι (suntíthēmi, “to put together”),^[2][3][6] from σύν (sún, “together”) and τίθημι (títhēmi, “to put, place”),^[5][3] from Proto-Indo-European *dʰeh₁- (“to set, put”).^[3][5] An isolated Middle English sintecis occurs about 1450.^[2][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Reasoning from causes to effects, or from principles to consequences, the opposite of analysis: 1611, in Coryate's Crudities.^[4][2] SOED has an isolated late Middle English grammatical sense, apposition.^[7]

Semantic evolution

The notion behind the senses is a combining of separate things into a whole.^[3] The word started in logic, then spread to chemistry, where the forming of a compound from its elements is from 1733–34,^[4][2] and then, from Coleridge onwards, to the general sense of combining parts into a whole (about 1833).^[4][2] In Kant's philosophy it was the mind's unifying of sense data (1817),^[4] and in the Hegelian triad it is the stage that reconciles thesis and antithesis (1896).^[4] Physics used it for building up white light or complex sounds from their components (1869).^[4]

Timeline

• 1606 – a loose Roman robe worn at meals.^[4]
• 1611 – reasoning from causes to effects.^[4][2]
• 1612 – a grammatical figure (obsolete).^[4]
• c. 1734 – chemical formation of a compound.^[4]
• 1817 – in Kant's philosophy.^[4]
• 1830 – synthesize.^[2]
• 1896 – the third stage of a dialectic.^[4]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. The combining of separate parts or elements into a coherent whole.
2. (chemistry) The forming of a chemical compound from simpler substances.
3. (philosophy) The reconciling of a thesis and its antithesis in a higher stage.
4. (logic) Deduction from general principles to particular cases.

Word family

• synthesist
• synthetase
• biosynthesis
• chemosynthesis
• electrosynthesis
• narcosynthesis
• nucleosynthesis
• parasynthesis

Related words

• synthesize
• synthetic
• thesis
• analysis
• theme

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
3. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
6. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
7. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press