Main Entry: to·pol·o·gy

Pronunciation: \tə-ˈpä-lə-jē, tä-\

Function: noun

Inflected Form(s): plural to·pol·o·gies

Etymology: International Scientific Vocabulary

Date: 1850

1 : topographic study of a particular place; specifically : the history of a region as indicated by its topography
2 a (1) : a branch of mathematics concerned with those properties of geometric configurations (as point sets) which are unaltered by elastic deformations (as a stretching or a twisting) that are homeomorphisms (2) : the set of all open subsets of a topological space b : configuration <topology of a molecule> <topology of a magnetic field>

— to·pol·o·gist \-jist\ noun