parallelism

noun par·al·lel·ism \ ˈper-ə-ˌle-ˌli-zəm , -lə-ˌli- , ˈpa-rə- \

Updated on: 11 Apr 2018

Definition of parallelism

1 : the quality or state of being parallel

the parallelism of architectural figures

2 : resemblance, correspondence

parallelism between obesity and hypertension
—H. M. Marvin

3 : repeated syntactical similarities introduced for rhetorical effect

biblical poetry relies largely on parallelism of lines
—E. P. Sanders

4 : a theory that mind and matter accompany one another but are not causally related

5 : the independent development of a similar trait in related species or lineages following divergence (see divergence 1c) from a common ancestor

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See parallelism defined for kids

Examples of parallelism in a Sentence

There is some degree of parallelism between the lives of the two women.
There is a certain parallelism in the development of the two technologies.

Recent Examples of parallelism from the Web

One is parallelism between an early battle which the protagonist loses, and a final fight which the protagonist wins.

— ciara wardlow, The Hollywood Reporter, "What 'Tomb Raider' Forgets About Origin Stories," 17 Mar. 2018
There are pleasing artistic flourishes like a foreshadowing image of waves overwhelming Tati, and parallelisms elsewhere that endow the movie with a literary feel.

— leslie felperin, The Hollywood Reporter, "'Rust’: Film Review | Sundance 2018," 23 Jan. 2018
But whether its convergence or parallelism, what sort of environment selects for intelligence?

— eoin o'carroll, The Christian Science Monitor, "Scientists say ravens display foresight, a trait thought unique to apes," 14 July 2017
The stories had a pleasing parallelism to them — the random travel from place to place, the studious tracking of the specimen.

— photographs and text by sarah lyall, New York Times, "Paying a Price for 8 Days of Flying in America," 9 June 2017
The parallelism allows qubits to do more calculations simultaneously.

— agam shah, PCWorld, "China adds a quantum computer to high-performance computing arsenal," 4 May 2017
Both businesswomen join the war effort at the same time, fall out of fashion at the same time, and so on, but the parallelism of their careers, signalled by a split-screen set, is too neat and repetitive a theme to sustain two acts.

— The New Yorker, "War Paint," 14 Apr. 2017
Parallelism in coding is hard, at times unintuitive, that’s true.

— dylan tweney, WIRED, "Gadget Lab Comments of the Week – Fourth Edition," 21 Aug. 2009

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'parallelism.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

First Known Use of parallelism

1610

in the meaning defined at sense 1

See Words from the same year

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parallelism Synonyms

Other Mathematics and Statistics Terms

abscissa, denominator, divisor, equilateral, exponent, hypotenuse, logarithm, oblique, radii, rhomb

PARALLELISM Defined for English Language Learners

parallelism

noun

Definition of parallelism for English Language Learners

: the fact of being similar in development or form

Medical Dictionary

parallelism

noun par·al·lel·ism \ ˈpar-ə-ˌlel-ˌiz-əm, -ləl- \

medical Definition of parallelism

: a philosophical or psychological doctrine that there is a one-to-one correspondence between events in the mind and events in the brain but that the two sets of events exist without interacting in a causal way — called also psychophysical parallelism