parallelism

noun

par·​al·​lel·​ism ˈper-ə-ˌle-ˌli-zəm How to pronounce parallelism (audio)
-lə-ˌli-,
ˈpa-rə-
1
: the quality or state of being parallel
the parallelism of architectural figures
2
: resemblance, correspondence
parallelism between obesity and hypertensionH. M. Marvin
3
: repeated syntactical similarities introduced for rhetorical effect
biblical poetry relies largely on parallelism of linesE. P. Sanders
4
: a theory that mind and matter accompany one another but are not causally related
5
: the independent development of similar traits or features (as of body structure or behavior) in different species or lineages that have common ancestry and that typically occupy similar environments or ecological niches : parallel evolution

Examples of parallelism in a Sentence

There is some degree of parallelism between the lives of the two women. There is a certain parallelism in the development of the two technologies.
Recent Examples on the Web
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
The events are routed between units and across chips asynchronously, meaning there is no central clock coordinating their movements—which can allow for massive parallelism. IEEE Spectrum, 8 May 2024 In-flight sequence batching, KV Cache optimizations, attention optimizations, multi-GPU parallelism, and FP8 quantization. Karl Freund, Forbes, 27 Mar. 2024 To begin with Henry Sugar and end with Poison, which debuts last, is to grapple with an unsettling parallelism. Vulture, 29 Sep. 2023 Level 2 introduces variables, sensor values, units, flow control statements, arithmetic operations, recursion, and parallelism. Julian Da Silva Gillig, IEEE Spectrum, 23 Nov. 2016 See all Example Sentences for parallelism 

Word History

First Known Use

1610, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Time Traveler
The first known use of parallelism was in 1610

Dictionary Entries Near parallelism

Cite this Entry

“Parallelism.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/parallelism. Accessed 30 Nov. 2024.

Kids Definition

parallelism

noun
par·​al·​lel·​ism ˈpar-ə-ˌlel-ˌiz-əm How to pronounce parallelism (audio)
: the quality or state of being parallel
especially : similarity of construction of word groups especially for effect or rhythm

Medical Definition

parallelism

noun
par·​al·​lel·​ism ˈpar-ə-ˌlel-ˌiz-əm, -ləl- How to pronounce parallelism (audio)
: a philosophical or psychological doctrine that there is a one-to-one correspondence between events in the mind and events in the brain but that the two sets of events exist without interacting in a causal way

called also psychophysical parallelism

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