Word.ws English Dictionary

stigmergy

stigmergy noun: a mechanism of spontaneous, indirect coordination between agents or actions, where the trace left in the environment by an action stimulates the performance of a subsequent action.

Noun

stigmergy (uncountable)

  1. A mechanism of spontaneous, indirect coordination between agents or actions, where the trace left in the environment by an action stimulates the performance of a subsequent action.
  2. A mechanism of indirect coordination between agents or actions, in which the aftereffects of one action guide a subsequent action.

Origin of stigmergy

Coined in 1959 by French biologist Pierre-Paul Grassé in reference to termite behaviour, from the Ancient Greek στίγμα (stígma, “mark”, “sign”) + ἔργον (érgon, “work”, “action”).

Words formed from stigmergy

Questions about stigmergy

What does stigmergy mean?
Stigmergy means a mechanism of spontaneous, indirect coordination between agents or actions, where the trace left in the environment by an action stimulates the performance of a subsequent action.
What part of speech is stigmergy?
Stigmergy is a noun.

Words near stigmergy in the dictionary

  1. stigme
  2. stigmellid
  3. stigmellids
  4. stigmergic
  5. stigmergically
  6. stigmergy
  7. stigmes
  8. stigonemataceous
  9. stigs
  10. Stihl
  11. Stikeleather

Source and license

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