- method
- method, mode, manner, way, fashion, system are comparable when they denote the means taken or the plan or procedure followed in doing a kind of work or in achieving an end.Method may denote either an abstraction or a concrete procedure, but in both cases it implies orderly, logical, and effective arrangements (as of one's ideas for an exposition or an argument, or of the steps to be followed in teaching, in investigation, in the treatment of a disease, or in any kind or piece of work); often, also, the term connotes regularity or formality in procedure{
his teaching is too informal to be said to have method
}{the inductive method of reasoning
}{the crude methods of trial and error— Suzzallo
}{the method of unfolding the course of a plot must in some ways be different in a play meant for acting and in a book meant for reading— Montague
}{always omitted the vowels in accordance with the Arabian method of orthography— Krutch
}{surely not to leave to fitful chance the things that method and system and science should order and adjust— Cardozo
}Mode (see also FASHION 2; STATE) is sometimes used interchangeably with method, but it seldom stresses orderly or logical arrangement; rather, it denotes an order or course pursued as the result of custom, tradition, or personal preference{the reasons given ... do not seem very plausible to our modes of thought— Binyon
}{a man to whom music was a necessary mode of expression— Read
}{a study of fictional villains and the mode their villainy assumes— Austin Warren
}Manner is often used in place of mode where the reference is to a personal or peculiar course or procedure, or to a method, whether pursued by a number of persons or not, that seems to be individual or distinctive{mark the manner of his teaching— Shak.
}{the mathematician ... is not capable of giving a reason in the same manner as the dialectician— Jowett
}{it is not consistent with his manner of writing Latin— Sellery
}Way (see also WAY 1), the most general of these terms, may be used in place of any of the rest and is found in many familiar idiomatic expressions where theoretically method, mode, or manner might be more explicit{religion implies not only a way of worship but a way of life
}{it was the white man's way to assert himself in any landscape, to change it, make it over a little ... it was the Indian's way to pass through a country . . . and leave no trace— Cather
}{the century has brought us not only new things to see but new ways of seeing— Day Lewis
}{Sally used to answer Robert's letters, sadly and patiently, and with no reproaches;—that was Sally's way— Deland
}Fashion differs from way not so much in denotation as in connotation derived in part from its commoner sense of style or vogue (see FASHION 2). The term often suggests an origin or source that is not so deep or a motivation that is not so abiding as those usually connoted by way; often also it is the idiomatic term in prepositional phrases introduced by after or in{he will, after his sour fashion, tell you— Shak.
}{subjects serious in themselves, but treated after my fashion, non- seriously— Lamb
}{I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion— Dowson
}{we hear them talking ... in different fashions under different moods—even as you and I— Lowes
}But fashion sometimes comes very close to mode when it means the way that is characteristic of or peculiar to a group or type{swim dog fashion
}{a group of boys sprawl, teen-age fashion, on couches and chairs— The Lamp
}System suggests a fully developed and often carefully formulated method{the mind can scarcely conceive a system for regulating commerce between nations which shall exclude all laws concerning navigation— John Marshall
}{the system of classification used by botanists
}{his manners, his speech and habits of thought all seemed so prescribed, so intricately connected to one another that they suggested a system of conduct— Cheever
}As an abstraction, however, meaning orderliness or plan in arrangement or procedure, system is often preferred to method{housekeeping without system
}{he follows no system in his reading
}
New Dictionary of Synonyms. 2014.
