Synthesis: meaning, example and synonyms
Synthesisn. The combination of separate ideas or elements into a coherent whole.
Example
The historian's final chapter offers a synthesis of economic and cultural explanations, arguing that neither alone can account for the city's decline.
- Part of speech
- noun
- Synonyms
- integration, combination, fusion, amalgamation
- Antonyms
- analysis, separation, breakdown
- Memory tip
- syn (together) + thesis (placing): putting the parts together.
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Check yourself: Synthesis in context
The biologist's theory was not entirely new; rather, it represented the ______ of ideas from genetics, ecology, and paleontology, fields whose findings had rarely been considered together.
Answer: synthesis. Combining ideas from separate fields into one theory is synthesis. Terseness (curt brevity), obstinacy (stubbornness) and attrition (gradual wearing down) don't fit.
The best research essays do more than summarize sources one by one; they achieve genuine ______, weaving those sources into a single, original argument.
Answer: synthesis. Weaving many sources into one argument is synthesis. Complacency (smug self-satisfaction), anomaly (a deviation from the norm) and terseness (curt brevity) don't fit.