Phrase guide

natural philosophy

noun · 2 senses · updated from the 2026-07-25 local source snapshot

Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.

Sound

Pronunciation

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noun

Meaning 1

The objective study of nature in the widest sense; science or the protoscience that led to it; (later especially) physics.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Usage: historical, uncountable

No example sentence was provided for this meaning.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: none provided

noun

Meaning 2

the science of matter and energy and their interactions

Definition source: Princeton WordNet 3.0

Examples

his favorite subject was physics

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: physics

Antonyms: none provided

Broader terms: natural science

Narrower terms: astronomy, uranology, aeronautics, astronautics, biophysics, cryogenics, cryogeny, crystallography, electromagnetism, electromagnetics, electronics, electrostatics, mechanics, nuclear physics, atomic physics, nucleonics, optics, particle physics, high-energy physics, high energy physics, plasma physics, quantum physics, rheology, solid-state physics, statistical mechanics, thermodynamics

History

Etymology

No etymology was provided for this word.

Across languages

Translations

2 source translations are retained for this English entry.

Latin: philosophia naturalis — objective study of nature
Middle English: philosophie — objective study of nature

Word forms

Inflections and variants

No separate word forms were provided.

Word family

Derived and related words

Derived: none provided

Related: attractive(a), repulsive(a), uncharged, miscible, mixable, immiscible, non-miscible, unmixable, critical, noncritical, diabatic, adiabatic, fissionable, fissile, nonfissionable, free, bound, reactive, unreactive, relativistic, fiducial, nuclear, metastable, quantal, quantized, dynamic, hydrodynamic, aerodynamic, rheologic, rheological, mesonic, mesic, phase space, containment, hodoscope, magnet, meniscus, nuclear reactor, reactor, metastability, isotropy, symmetry, duality, wave-particle duality, absorptivity, absorption factor, reluctivity, rest mass, relativistic mass, gravitational mass, inertial mass, mass energy, flux density, flux, optical density, transmission density, photographic density, absorbance, quantum, attractor, attracter, Bose-Einstein statistics, Dalton's law, Dalton's law of partial pressures, law of partial pressures, Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution law, Boltzmann distribution law, Fermi-Dirac statistics, Gay-Lussac's law, Charles's law, law of volumes, Hooke's law, Kirchhoff's laws, law of gravitation, Newton's law of gravitation, law of thermodynamics, mass-energy equivalence, Planck's law, Planck's radiation law, theory of gravitation, theory of gravity, gravitational theory, Newton's theory of gravitation, principle of relativity, principle of equivalence, field theory, Bohr theory, conservation, parity, conservation of parity, space-reflection symmetry, mirror symmetry, wave theory, undulatory theory, wave theory of light, corpuscular theory, corpuscular theory of light, kinetic theory, kinetic theory of gases, relativity, theory of relativity, relativity theory, Einstein's theory of relativity, supersymmetry, quantum theory, dynamical system, chaos, collision, hit, gravity wave, gravitation wave, oscillation, vibration, wave, undulation, soliton, soliton wave, solitary wave, transient, quantum jump, recombination, transmutation, amplitude, node, antinode, center of buoyancy, centre of buoyancy, center of immersion, centre of immersion, wave front, wavefront, couple, elementary particle, fundamental particle, quark, weakly interacting massive particle, WIMP, physicist, Coriolis effect, perturbation, atomic spectrum, cohesion, Coriolis force, energy, free energy, power, work, force, gravity, gravitation, gravitational attraction, gravitational force, inertia, angular acceleration, angular velocity, light, visible light, visible radiation, sympathetic vibration, magnetic dipole moment, reluctance, scintillation, shear, stress, tension, strain, interaction, fundamental interaction, strong interaction, strong force, color force, weak interaction, weak force, absorption, diffusion, nuclear reaction, relaxation, relaxation behavior, spallation, modulus, coefficient of elasticity, modulus of elasticity, elastic modulus, gas constant, universal gas constant, R, gravitational constant, universal gravitational constant, constant of gravitation, G, metric function, metric, abundance, pencil, dip, angle of dip, magnetic dip, magnetic inclination, inclination, ground state, absorber, atom, molecule, acceleration, deceleration, reversibly, bombard, backscatter, transform, disintegrate, decay, decompose, magnetize, magnetise, demagnetize, demagnetise, degauss, quench, liquefy, liquify, liquidize, liquidise, solidify, freeze, freeze out, freeze down, crystallize, crystallise, crystalize, crystalise, decouple, polarize, polarise, electrify, depolarize, depolarise, quantize, quantise, induce, induct, translate

Semantic map

Other relationships

Hypernyms: natural science

Hyponyms: astronomy, uranology, aeronautics, astronautics, biophysics, cryogenics, cryogeny, crystallography, electromagnetism, electromagnetics, electronics, electrostatics, mechanics, nuclear physics, atomic physics, nucleonics, optics, particle physics, high-energy physics, high energy physics, plasma physics, quantum physics, rheology, solid-state physics, statistical mechanics, thermodynamics

Sources

Where this information comes from

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