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ramification

UK/ɹæmɪfɪˈkeɪʃən/US/ˌɹæməfəˈkeɪʃən/
nounC1Very rare — outside the 30,000 commonest English words, so you will meet it in writing rather than in speechToo rare in one of the two pools to compare — fewer than 20 uses in speech or in writing

Other forms: ramifications

A ramification is a consequence that branches out from a decision. Consider the ramifications.

The image is a branch, which is why the word is nearly always plural. A ramification is usually the one nobody thought of when the decision was made.

Definitions of ramification

  1. 1nounramificationA consequence that branches out from a decision.C1

    “The ramifications ran on for a decade.”

ramification is a consequence.

Where it comes from

Medieval Latin ramificatio, from ramus, a branch, plus facere, to make.

  1. Medieval Latin

    rāmificātiō

  2. Middle French

    ramification

  3. English, today

    ramification

From Middle French ramification, or its source, Medieval Latin rāmificātiō. by surface analysis, ramify + -ication.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

ramification in the wild

  • In geometry, ramification is 'branching out', in the way that the square root function, for complex numbers, can be seen to have two branches differing in sign.

    Ramification (mathematics)

  • Ramification is the main object of study in ramification theory.

    Ramification (mathematics)

  • In philosophy and artificial intelligence (especially, knowledge based systems), the ramification problem is concerned with the indirect consequences of an action.

    Ramification problem

  • Yet, in a chain of computation, downstream events may very well find some types of results from earlier resolutions of ramification as problematic for their own algorithms.

    Ramification problem

  • Gardeners stimulate the process of ramification through pruning, thereby making trees, shrubs, and other plants bushier and denser.

    Ramification (botany)

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.