generalisation

1. 1.

   an idea or conclusion having general application

   “he spoke in broad generalities”

   Synonymsgeneralizationgenerality

   Broaderidea

   Narrowerprinciple
2. 2.

   the process of formulating general concepts by abstracting common properties of instances

   Synonymsabstractiongeneralization

   Broadertheorization
3. 3.

   reasoning from detailed facts to general principles

   Synonymsgeneralizationinductioninductive reasoning

   Broadercolligation
4. 4.

   (psychology) transfer of a response learned to one stimulus to a similar stimulus

   Synonymsgeneralizationstimulus generalizationstimulus generalisation

   Broadertransfer

   Narrowerirradiation

   psychology

Other forms of generalisation

plural

generalisations·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about generalisation

What does generalisation mean?

generalisation means "an idea or conclusion having general application". That is the primary sense; the word has 4 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in generalisation?

generalisation has 7 syllables: ge-ne-ra-li-sa-ti-on. The stress falls on "ti".

What is another word for generalisation?

Close synonyms include generalization, generality, abstraction, generalization, generalization. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is generalisation a common word?

generalisation is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.