Word.ws English Dictionary

etic

Syllables: e·tic/ˈɛtɪk/

etic adjective: of or pertaining to analysis of a culture from a perspective situated outside that culture.

Adjective

etic (comparative more etic, superlative most etic)

  1. Of or pertaining to analysis of a culture from a perspective situated outside that culture.
    • A useful example of the emic-etic distinction may be made by comparing the concept “waves on the ocean or sea” from the perspective of a European American with that of a Truk Islander […] The proposed etics here might be that both cultures understand the use of waves as vehicles for surfing and as...1996, Advanced Methodological Issues in Culturally Competent Evaluation for Substance Abuse Prevention

Forms of etic

comparativemore etic
superlativemost etic

Origin of etic

Coined by American linguist Kenneth Pike in 1954 from phonetic. * Kenneth Lee Pike (1962), With Heart and Mind: A Personal Synthesis of Scholarship and Devotion, page 37: “I have coined the term etic to refer to the detached observer’s view […]”

Words formed from etic

Words that rhyme with etic

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about etic

What does etic mean?
Etic means of or pertaining to analysis of a culture from a perspective situated outside that culture.
What part of speech is etic?
Etic is an adjective.
How do you pronounce etic?
Etic is pronounced /ˈɛtɪk/.

Words near etic in the dictionary

  1. ETI
  2. etianic acid
  3. etianic acids
  4. ETIAS
  5. etibendazole
  6. etic
  7. etically
  8. eticity
  9. eticlopride
  10. eticlordifene
  11. eticness

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: etic (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “etic.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/etic. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.