Polymorphism

3 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Polymorphism \Pol`y*mor"phism\, n.
     1. (Crystallog.) Same as {Pleomorphism}.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     2. (Biol.)
        (a) The capability of assuming different forms; the


            capability of widely varying in form.
        (b) Existence in many forms; the coexistence, in the same
            locality, of two or more distinct forms independent of
            sex, not connected by intermediate gradations, but
            produced from common parents.
            [1913 Webster]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  polymorphism
       n 1: (chemistry) the existence of different kinds of crystal of
            the same chemical compound [syn: {pleomorphism}]
       2: (biology) the existence of two or more forms of individuals
          within the same animal species (independent of sex
          differences)

From The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (27 SEP 03) [foldoc]:

  polymorphism
       
           A concept first identified by
          {Christopher Strachey} (1967) and developed by Hindley and
          Milner, allowing {types} such as list of anything.  E.g. in
          {Haskell}:
       
          	length :: [a] -> Int
       
          is a function which operates on a list of objects of any type,
          a (a is a {type variable}).  This is known as parametric
          polymorphism.  Polymorphic typing allows strong type checking
          as well as generic functions.  {ML} in 1976 was the first
          language with polymorphic typing.
       
          Ad-hoc polymorphism (better described as {overloading}) is the
          ability to use the same syntax for objects of different types,
          e.g. "+" for addition of reals and integers or "-" for unary
          negation or diadic subtraction.  Parametric polymorphism
          allows the same object code for a function to handle arguments
          of many types but overloading only reuses syntax and requires
          different code to handle different types.
       
          See also {generic type variable}.
       
          In {object-oriented programming}, the term is used to describe
          a {variable} that may refer to objects whose {class} is not
          known at {compile time} and which respond at {run time}
          according to the actual class of the object to which they
          refer.
       
          (2002-08-08)