# What Is The Meaning Of Technology?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-meaning-of-technology/438540>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [February 21, 2008, 9:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-meaning-of-technology/438540 "2008-02-21T09:45:08Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Strain\_of\_Thought](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3be4f8/32.png) [@Strain\_of\_Thought](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Strain_of_Thought)\
**Post date:** [February 21, 2008, 9:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-meaning-of-technology/438540/1 "2008-02-21T09:45:08Z")

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I may be asking for trouble by putting this up in GQ, but insofar as a factual answer is possible that’s what I want.

I am daily vexed by people’s use of the word _technology_. My best guess at the common meaning is “practical applications of the sciences of chemistry and physics, with emphasis on electronics”. My personal definition is essentially anything remotely patentable: a “useful process, machine, article of manufacture, or composition of matter”. However, I am increasingly aware of how overloaded this use is; one red flag is that when using my definition I cannot draw a distinction between _technology_ and _technique_.

What’s more, from its suffix _technology_ ought to compare with other names of sciences like _biology_ or _geology_, but instead it seems to me the word with that meaning is _engineering_, and _technology_ ends up referring to the products of the science it ostensibly is. You can make sentences like: “Aerospace _Engineering_ utilizes sophisticated manufacturing _techniques_ to produce a turbofan airliner, which is an impressive piece of _technology_.”

So, my questions are:

1. How has the word _technology_ historically been defined?

2. What is (are) the proper modern definition(s) of technology, and in what context(s)?

3. How does one distinguish _engineering_ and _technique_ from _technology_?

4. If _technology_ is commonly thought of as “practical applications of the sciences of chemistry and physics, with emphasis on electronics”, then what other blanket term can be used to describe everything which is patentable in common conversation? (without necessarily being talking about patents)

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**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\
**Post date:** [February 21, 2008, 10:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-meaning-of-technology/438540/2 "2008-02-21T10:03:07Z")

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[QUOTE=Strain of Thought]  
I1) How has the word _technology_ historically been defined?  
[/quote]

A discourse or treatise on an art or arts; the scientific study of the practical or industrial arts 1615  
Practical arts collectively. 1859  
A particular practical or industrial art. 1957

Courtesy OED.

> [@](#):
>
> 1. What is (are) the proper modern definition(s) of technology, and in what context(s)?

Any of the above are proper modern definitions, though the first is somewhat archaic. Not sure what you mean by context, you can use them in in any context.

> [@](#):
>
> 1. How does one distinguish _engineering_ and _technique_ from _technology_?

In simple terms engineering is work, it is making things, it is a physical action, something one does. Technique is the specific way that one does it. Technology is the artform of doing it.

> [@](#):
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> If _technology_ is commonly thought of as “practical applications of the sciences of chemistry and physics, with emphasis on electronics”, then what other blanket term can be used to describe everything which is patentable in common conversation? (without necessarily being talking about patents)

Inventions? Devices? Contrivances? Machines There are dozens of possible words, it really depends on a what you are referring to when you say “patentable”. Would you really call genes “technology”? Yet genes are patentable.

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**Author:** ![NinjaChick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/71c47a/32.png) [@NinjaChick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NinjaChick)\
**Post date:** [February 21, 2008, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-meaning-of-technology/438540/3 "2008-02-21T18:00:57Z")

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[QUOTE=Strain of Thought]

1. How has the word _technology_ historically been defined?  
[/QUOTE]

Here’s some information that’s fairly irrelevant to what you’re really asking, but is interesting anyway (IMO). The original Greek word that _technology_ is directly from was _teknologia_. _Tekne_ is a noun with a couple possible meanings: art, skill, craft, or method. The -_logia_ suffix is a form of _logein_, a verb meaning “to speak”. Put that together and we get “the art or method of speaking”. _Teknologia_ originally referred to grammar.