multidisciplinary

adjective

mul·​ti·​dis·​ci·​plin·​ary ˌməl-tē-ˈdi-sə-plə-ˌner-ē 

-ˌtī-,

 especially British  -ˌdi-sə-ˈpli-nə-rē

: combining or involving more than one discipline or field of study : interdisciplinary

Treatment requires a multidisciplinary approach involving physicians, nutritionists, psychologists, trainers, and gynecologists …

—Michelle L. Cameron Donaldson

However, the task of interpreting such spectra … will take a multidisciplinary team of astrophysicists, Earth scientists, climate scientists, and biologists.

—Sarah Scoles

Indeed, nanotechnology may change the way we think about mechanical engineering altogether, making it a more multidisciplinary field, one as concerned with atomic-level effects as electrical engineering or chemistry is.

—Stephen L. Girshick and Arun Majumdar

Did you know?

A discipline is a field of study. So a multidisciplinary (or interdisciplinary) course is a team-taught course in which students are asked to understand a single subject as it's seen by two or more traditional disciplines. Multidisciplinary teaching can open students' eyes to different views of a subject that they had never considered before. A multidisciplinary panel discussion, on the other hand, presents views from scholars in different fields but may leave any merging of the information to the audience.

Examples of multidisciplinary in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Over the past dozen or so years, Ballard’s multidisciplinary ambitions have come to the fore. —Andrew Barker, Variety, 11 July 2024

Our investments in the next generation of oral health care products, communication about the power of preventative oral health and our multidisciplinary work with healthcare professionals and professional associations are helping to close the oral health gap. —Sasha Rogelberg, Fortune, 3 July 2024

By bridging the gap between different sectors and disciplines, the course fostered an all-round, multidisciplinary approach to space cybersecurity. —Sharon Lemac-Vincere, WIRED, 29 June 2024

Providing a vast array of services with a multidisciplinary approach, Vera Clinic places great importance on the well-being of its patients and the quality of its services. —Kody Boye, The Arizona Republic, 25 June 2024

Word History

First Known Use

1944, in the meaning defined above