Word.ws English Dictionary

is-a

is-a noun: the relationship between two entities in which one entity inherits from the other.

Noun

is-a (plural is-as)

  1. The relationship between two entities in which one entity inherits from the other.
    • A special slot, the Is-a slot, short for is-a-member-of-the-class, ties instances to the classes they are members of.1992, Patrick Henry Winston, Artificial Intelligence, 3rd edition, page 180
  2. Such a relationship expressed as an ontology component (regardless of whether the OOP paradigm per se is implemented).

Forms of is-a

pluralis-as

Origin of is-a

From is + a.

Questions about is-a

What does is-a mean?
Is-a means the relationship between two entities in which one entity inherits from the other.
What part of speech is is-a?
Is-a is a noun.
What is the plural of is-a?
The plural of is-a is is-as.

Words near is-a in the dictionary

  1. is wrong
  2. is you is or is you ain't
  3. is your head cold
  4. is't
  5. is-
  6. is-a
  7. is-as
  8. IS-GS
  9. IS-K
  10. is-ought problem
  11. is-ought problems

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: is-a (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: “is-a.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/is-a. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.