empiric
/ɛmˈpɪrɪk
/ /ɪmˈpɪrɪk/adjective
another term for empirical.However, although this relationship has been described based on empiric data, there are no mathematical models in the literature relating number of antibiotics used to probability of adequate coverage....
- In such families empiric data suggests that the risk of recurrence is approximately 15%.
- In the absence of such data, empiric selection should consider local epidemiology and susceptibility patterns.
noun archaic
1A person who, in medicine or other sciences, relies solely on observation and experiment.Whereas there is plenty of information on empirics, because of the licensing regime, folk healers occupy a very small place in the medical and police archives of the time.
1.1A quack doctor.In the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, the ‘learned physicians’ who were taught Galenic humoral medicine in the universities labelled such doctors quacks, empirics, and mountebanks....
- But the bulk of the population had little access to physicians, seeking instead barber-surgeons, apothecaries, empirics such as bonesetters and tooth-drawers, or wise women.
Origin
Late Middle English: via Latin from Greek empeirikos, from empeiria 'experience', from empeiros 'skilled' (based on peira 'trial, experiment').