Word.ws English Dictionary

symbol pushing

symbol pushing noun: the practice of solving mathematical problems by manipulating symbols (as in algebra) rather than through visual or intuitive understanding.

Noun

symbol pushing (uncountable)

  1. (derogatory) The practice of solving mathematical problems by manipulating symbols (as in algebra) rather than through visual or intuitive understanding.
    • The fact that we eventually reach a formulation free from logic (in terms of functional analysis) does not invalidate the use of logical tools: in fact the simplest way to prove termination (i.e. nilpotency) will always be standard logical manipulation, "symbol pushing"; but the existence of a...1989, R. Ferro, Logic Colloquium '88, Elsevier Science, →ISBN, page 223
    • Other mathematicians abhor visual proofs and only recognize 'symbol pushing'. Ideally, that would lead to a mathematics that would be fully independent of the human mind, and be simply the (uninterpreted!) output of a Turing machine.2015, The Oxford Handbook of Perceptual Organization, Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 47

Words formed from symbol pushing

Questions about symbol pushing

What does symbol pushing mean?
Symbol pushing means the practice of solving mathematical problems by manipulating symbols (as in algebra) rather than through visual or intuitive understanding.
What part of speech is symbol pushing?
Symbol pushing is a noun.

Words near symbol pushing in the dictionary

  1. symbol
  2. symbol group
  3. symbol groups
  4. symbol pusher
  5. symbol pushers
  6. symbol pushing
  7. symbol table
  8. symbol tables
  9. symbol-pushing
  10. symbolaeography
  11. symbolatrous

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: symbol pushing (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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