pathological
from
WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006)
pathological
adj 1: of or relating to the practice of pathology;
"pathological laboratory" [syn: {pathological},
{pathologic}]
2: caused by or evidencing a mentally disturbed condition; "a
pathological liar"; "a pathological urge to succeed"
3: caused by or altered by or manifesting disease or pathology;
"diseased tonsils"; "a morbid growth"; "pathologic tissue";
"pathological bodily processes" [syn: {diseased}, {morbid},
{pathologic}, {pathological}]
from
Jargon File (4.4.4, 14 Aug 2003)
pathological
adj.
1. [scientific computation] Used of a data set that is grossly
atypical of normal expected input, esp. one that exposes a weakness or
bug in whatever algorithm one is using. An algorithm that can be
broken by pathological inputs may still be useful if such inputs are
very unlikely to occur in practice.
2. When used of test input, implies that it was purposefully
engineered as a worst case. The implication in both senses is that the
data is spectacularly ill-conditioned or that someone had to
explicitly set out to break the algorithm in order to come up with
such a crazy example.
3. Also said of an unlikely collection of circumstances. "If the
network is down and comes up halfway through the execution of that
command by root, the system may just crash." "Yes, but that's a
pathological case." Often used to dismiss the case from discussion,
with the implication that the consequences are acceptable, since they
will happen so infrequently (if at all) that it doesn't seem worth
going to the extra trouble to handle that case (see sense 1).
from
The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (8 July 2008)
pathological
1. [scientific computation] Used of a data set that is grossly
atypical of normal expected input, especially one that exposes
a weakness or bug in whatever algorithm one is using. An
algorithm that can be broken by pathological inputs may still
be useful if such inputs are very unlikely to occur in
practice.
2. When used of test input, implies that it was purposefully
engineered as a worst case. The implication in both senses is
that the data is spectacularly ill-conditioned or that someone
had to explicitly set out to break the algorithm in order to
come up with such a crazy example.
3. Also said of an unlikely collection of circumstances. "If
the network is down and comes up halfway through the execution
of that command by root, the system may just crash." "Yes,
but that's a pathological case." Often used to dismiss the
case from discussion, with the implication that the
consequences are acceptable, since they will happen so
infrequently (if at all) that it doesn't seem worth going to
the extra trouble to handle that case (see sense 1).
[{Jargon File}]
from
Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0
19 Moby Thesaurus words for "pathological":
bad, cankered, contaminated, diseased, gangrened, gangrenous,
infected, morbid, mortified, peccant, poisoned, septic,
sphacelated, tainted, ulcerated, ulcerous, unhealthy, unsound,
unwholesome
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