"symbol pusher" meaning in English

See symbol pusher in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Forms: symbol pushers [plural]
Etymology: symbol pushing + -er Etymology templates: {{suffix|en|symbol pushing|-er}} symbol pushing + -er Head templates: {{en-noun}} symbol pusher (plural symbol pushers)
  1. (mathematics, somewhat derogatory) Someone who engages in symbol pushing; someone solving mathematical problems by manipulating symbols (as in algebra) rather than through visual or intuitive understanding. Tags: derogatory Categories (topical): Mathematics
    Sense id: en-symbol_pusher-en-noun-hx-OhJyw Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, English terms suffixed with -er Topics: mathematics, sciences

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for symbol pusher meaning in English (2.7kB)

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  "etymology_text": "symbol pushing + -er",
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      "tags": [
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  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
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          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
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          "kind": "topical",
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          "name": "Mathematics",
          "orig": "en:Mathematics",
          "parents": [
            "Formal sciences",
            "Sciences",
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            "Fundamental"
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      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1985, Jerry R. Hobbs, Robert C. Moore, Formal Theories of the Commonsense World, Ablex Pub., page 444",
          "text": "That is to say, in both cases we have in mind an intended model or structure for our theory. We are not in the position of mere \"symbol pushers.\"",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2003, Thomas R. Shultz, Computational Developmental Psychology, MIT Press, page 227",
          "text": "[…] it is clear that the symbol pusher does not understand Chinese at all; he is only following meaningless instructions. Because computer models, particularly of the symbolic variety, are merely manipulating symbols, and hence understand nothing about what they are doing, they are poor models.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2009, Paul J. Nahin, Mrs. Perkins's Electric Quilt, Princeton University Press, page 282",
          "text": "While known today as a theoretician, Einstein was not just a symbol pusher; the physics of D appears in much detail in his papers on Brownian motion.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
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        "Someone who engages in symbol pushing; someone solving mathematical problems by manipulating symbols (as in algebra) rather than through visual or intuitive understanding."
      ],
      "id": "en-symbol_pusher-en-noun-hx-OhJyw",
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          "symbol",
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        [
          "visual",
          "visual"
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        [
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      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(mathematics, somewhat derogatory) Someone who engages in symbol pushing; someone solving mathematical problems by manipulating symbols (as in algebra) rather than through visual or intuitive understanding."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "derogatory"
      ],
      "topics": [
        "mathematics",
        "sciences"
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  "word": "symbol pusher"
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  "etymology_text": "symbol pushing + -er",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "symbol pushers",
      "tags": [
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      "args": {},
      "expansion": "symbol pusher (plural symbol pushers)",
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      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1985, Jerry R. Hobbs, Robert C. Moore, Formal Theories of the Commonsense World, Ablex Pub., page 444",
          "text": "That is to say, in both cases we have in mind an intended model or structure for our theory. We are not in the position of mere \"symbol pushers.\"",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2003, Thomas R. Shultz, Computational Developmental Psychology, MIT Press, page 227",
          "text": "[…] it is clear that the symbol pusher does not understand Chinese at all; he is only following meaningless instructions. Because computer models, particularly of the symbolic variety, are merely manipulating symbols, and hence understand nothing about what they are doing, they are poor models.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2009, Paul J. Nahin, Mrs. Perkins's Electric Quilt, Princeton University Press, page 282",
          "text": "While known today as a theoretician, Einstein was not just a symbol pusher; the physics of D appears in much detail in his papers on Brownian motion.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Someone who engages in symbol pushing; someone solving mathematical problems by manipulating symbols (as in algebra) rather than through visual or intuitive understanding."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "mathematics",
          "mathematics"
        ],
        [
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          "symbol pushing"
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        ],
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        ],
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        ],
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        "(mathematics, somewhat derogatory) Someone who engages in symbol pushing; someone solving mathematical problems by manipulating symbols (as in algebra) rather than through visual or intuitive understanding."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "derogatory"
      ],
      "topics": [
        "mathematics",
        "sciences"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "symbol pusher"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-04-30 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (210104c and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.