Word.ws English Dictionary

Rice's theorem

Rice's theorem proper noun: a theorem stating that all nontrivial semantic properties of programs are undecidable.

Proper noun

Rice's theorem

  1. A theorem stating that all nontrivial semantic properties of programs are undecidable.

Origin of Rice's theorem

Named after Henry Gordon Rice, who proved it in 1951.

Questions about Rice's theorem

What does Rice's theorem mean?
Rice's theorem means a theorem stating that all nontrivial semantic properties of programs are undecidable.
What part of speech is Rice's theorem?
Rice's theorem is a proper noun.

Words near Rice's theorem in the dictionary

  1. rice water
  2. rice weevil
  3. rice weevils
  4. rice wine
  5. rice wines
  6. Rice's theorem
  7. Rice's whale
  8. Rice's whales
  9. rice-cracker
  10. rice-crackers
  11. rice-eater

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Rice's theorem (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: “Rice's theorem.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/rice%27s_theorem. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.