ad hoc
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(ăd hŏk', hōk') 
adv.
For the specific purpose, case, or situation at hand and for no other: a committee formed ad hoc to address the issue of salaries.
adj.
adv.
For the specific purpose, case, or situation at hand and for no other: a committee formed ad hoc to address the issue of salaries.
adj.
- Formed for or concerned with one specific purpose: an ad hoc compensation committee.
- Improvised and often impromptu: "On an ad hoc basis, Congress has . . . placed . . . ceilings on military aid to specific countries" (New York Times).
[Latin : ad, to + hoc, neuter accusative of hic, this.]
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(Latin, 'to this') has been recorded in English since the 17th century, principally as a quasi-adjective meaning 'designated for a specific purpose' as in an ad hoc committee or an ad hoc appointment. It should normally be printed in italic. Although strictly speaking it should not be qualified by reducing or intensifying adverbs such as fairly or very, this is common in less formal English (The arrangement seems extremely ad hoc to them), and in the 20th century ad hoc has generated an array of startlingly un-Latinate derivatives such as ad-hoc-ery and ad-hoc-ism (sometimes with medial hyphen, sometimes without).
| ad, acumen, actually | |
| ad, advert, adamant, adapter, -or |
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Meaning "to this" in Latin, it refers to dealing with situations as they occur rather than ones that are repeated on a regular basis. For example, an "ad hoc query" is a question made up on the spot. An "ad hoc mobile network" is a communications network in which each node participates based on its location at the moment. See ad hoc query, ad hoc mode and mobile ad hoc network.
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For this particular purpose, an ad hoc committee is one commissioned for a special purpose; an ad hoc attorney is one designated for a particular client in a special situation.
| Actuary, Actuarial Science, Actual Damages | |
| Ad Infinitum, Ad Valorem, Add-On Interest |
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For the special purpose or end at hand; also, by extension, improvised or impromptu. The term, Latin for "to this," is most often used for committees established for a specific purpose, as in The committee was formed ad hoc to address health insurance problems. The term is also used as an adjective (An ad hoc committee was formed), and has given rise to the noun adhocism for the tendency to use temporary, provisional, or improvised methods to deal with a particular problem. [Early 1600s]
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This entry contains information applicable to United States law only.
[Latin, For this; for this special pur- pose.] An attorney ad hoc, or a guardian or curator ad hoc, is one appointed for a special purpose, generally to represent the client or infant in the particular action in which the appointment is made.
Random House Word Menu:
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categories related to 'ad hoc'
- Acts, Powers, Conditions, and Procedures - ad hoc: with specific or particular purpose
- Latin Words and Phrases - ad hoc: lit. for this; for this purpose
Wikipedia on Answers.com:
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Ad hoc
This article is about the Latin phrase. For other uses, see Ad hoc (disambiguation).
Ad hoc is a Latin phrase meaning "for this". It generally signifies a solution designed for a specific problem or task, non-generalizable, and not intended to be able to be adapted to other purposes. Compare A priori. Common examples are organizations, committees, and commissions created at the national or international level for a specific task. In other fields the term may refer, for example, to a military unit created under special circumstances, a tailor-made suit, a handcrafted network protocol, or a purpose-specific equation. Ad hoc can also mean makeshift solutions, shifting contexts to create new meanings, inadequate planning, or improvised events.
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Ad hoc hypothesis
Main article: Ad hoc hypothesis
In science and philosophy, ad hoc means the addition of extraneous hypotheses to a theory to save it from being falsified. Ad hoc hypotheses compensate for anomalies not anticipated by the theory in its unmodified form. Scientists are often skeptical of theories that rely on frequent, unsupported adjustments to sustain them. Ad hoc hypotheses are often characteristic of pseudoscientific subjects.[1] Much of Ad hoc hypotheses are not necessarily incorrect, however. An interesting example of an apparently supported ad hoc hypothesis was Albert Einstein's addition of the cosmological constant to general relativity in order to allow a static universe. Although he later referred to it as his "greatest blunder," it has been found to correspond quite well to the theories of dark energy.[2]
Ad hoc querying
Ad hoc querying is a term in information science. Many application software systems have an underlying database which can be accessed by only a limited number of queries and reports. Typically these are available via some sort of menu, and will have been carefully designed, pre-programmed and optimized for performance by expert programmers.
By contrast, "ad hoc" reporting systems allow the users themselves to create specific, customized queries. Typically this would be via a user-friendly GUI-based system without the need for the in-depth knowledge of SQL, or database schema that a programmer would have.
Because such reporting has the potential to severely degrade the performance of a live system, it is usually provided over a data warehouse. Ad hoc querying/reporting is a business intelligence subtopic, along with OLAP, data warehousing, data mining and other tools.
Ad hoc military
In military, ad hoc units are created during unpredictable situations, when the cooperation between different units is needed for fast action. An example would be a military breakout.
Ad hoc networking
The term ad hoc networking typically refers to a system of network elements that combine to form a network requiring little or no planning.
See also
References
- ^ Carroll, Robert T. (23 February 2009), "Ad hoc hypothesis", The Skeptic's Dictionary, http://skepdic.com/adhoc.html, retrieved 1 May 2009
- ^ Texas A&M University (28 November 2007), "Einstein's Biggest Blunder? Dark Energy May Be Consistent With Cosmological Constant", ScienceDaily, http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/11/071127142128.htm, retrieved 22 June 2008
Further reading
- Howard, R. (2002), Smart Mobs: the Next Social Revolution, Perseus
External links
The Wiktionary entry for ad hoc
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