Word.ws English Dictionary

holist

holist adjective: that concentrates on forming an overview of the topic.

Adjective

holist (not comparable)

  1. That concentrates on forming an overview of the topic.
    • Pask suggests that these strategies reflect basic learning styles; holist strategies reflect a comprehension learning style and serialist strategies an operation learning style.2000, Francis M. Quinn, The Principles and Practice of Nurse Education, page 34
    • Pask described the two strategies as 'holist' and 'serialist'.[…]Learners who adopt a holist strategy (described as comprehension learners) like to get an overview of a topic.2001, Howard Hills, Team-based Learning, page 87

Noun

holist (plural holists)

  1. A believer in, or practitioner of, holism; one who believes that a topic of study cannot be fully understood by studying the parts, or who studies by considering the whole.
    • The holists generally claimed that the variety of the clinical pictures was not intrinsic to aphasia, although it was recognized that aphasic patients differ in many respects, not only the severity of the language disorder.2003, Anna Basso, Aphasia and Its Therapy, page 21
  2. One who advocates studying society as a whole, and who consistently interprets the actions of individuals in that context.
    • Holism is more eclectic in its methods; for most holists, rigor means reconstructing the meaning of an action in the subject's own terms, and interpreting it in light of a richly detailed cultural, social, and historical context.1991, Jack Snyder, “5: Science and Sovietology: Bridging the Methods Gap in Soviet Foreign Policy Studies”, in Erik P. Hoffmann, Robbin Frederick Laird, Frederic J. Fleron, editors, Soviet Foreign...
    • By contrast, the holists, like Emile Durkheim, regard individual action as only a reaction to pressures exerted by society as a whole: they are right in stressing the social embeddedness of individual action.2006, Mario Bunge, “1: A systemic perspective on crime”, in Per-Olof H. Wikström, Robert J. Sampson, editors, The Explanation of Crime: Context, Mechanisms and Development, page 9
  3. One who prefers to learn by forming an overview of the topic.
    • Those subjects using a serialist strategy tended to proceed in a step-by-step manner, whereas the holists adopted a more global approach to what was to be learned.2000, Francis M. Quinn, The Principles and Practice of Nurse Education, page 34
    • They^([serialists]) learn rules, methods and details more readily than the holists.2001, Howard Hills, Team-based Learning, page 87

holist meaning in Bengali

holist in Bengali

সাফল্যবাদী, অখণ্ডতাবাদী
More languagesFewer languages
Sindhi
پُوروادِي pūrvādī

Examples of holist in a sentence

  • The serialist/holist cognitive style is a measure of a bipolar information-processing strategy that describes the way that learners select and represent information (Pask, 1976; Pask & Scott, 1972).2012, David H. Jonassen, Barbara L. Grabowski, Handbook of Individual Differences Learning and Instruction, page 209:
  • Holists use a global, thematic approach to learning by concentrating first on building broad descriptions.[…]The holist then uses complex links to relate mutileveled information.2012, David H. Jonassen, Barbara L. Grabowski, Handbook of Individual Differences Learning and Instruction, page 209:

Forms of holist

pluralholists

Origin of holist

From hol- + -ist.

Questions about holist

What does holist mean?
Holist means that concentrates on forming an overview of the topic.
What is holist in Bengali?
Holist in Bengali is সাফল্যবাদী, অখণ্ডতাবাদী. See Holist meaning in Bengali.
How do you use holist in a sentence?
The serialist/holist cognitive style is a measure of a bipolar information-processing strategy that describes the way that learners select and represent information (Pask, 1976; Pask & Scott, 1972).
What part of speech is holist?
Holist can be an adjective or a noun.

Words near holist in the dictionary

  1. holins
  2. Holis
  3. holishkes
  4. holism
  5. holisms
  6. holist
  7. Holister
  8. holistic
  9. holistically
  10. holisticness
  11. holistics

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: holist (page history and authors); Holist (Bengali Wiktionary) (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: “holist.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/holist. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.