butunluk

butunluk, usually written with the diacritic as bütünlük in Turkish, is a noun meaning the state of being whole or complete. It signifies totality, integrity, and coherence among the parts of a system, object, or concept. The word derives from bütün (whole) and the abstract-noun suffix -lük. In everyday Turkish, butunluk encompasses both physical wholeness and figurative integrity.

In philosophy and systems thinking, butunluk is associated with holism—the idea that a whole possesses properties that its parts do not have in isolation. In ethics and personal life, it also denotes moral integrity and consistency between values and actions. In technical domains, the term is used in phrases such as veri bütünlüğü (data integrity), which refers to accuracy and consistency of information across storage, processing, and transmission.

The concept is often contrasted with reductionist or fragmentary views, highlighting the interdependence of components within a larger system. Related Turkish terms include bütünsel (holistic), bütünsellik (wholeness), and uyum (harmony), which share overlapping meanings but emphasize different aspects of the idea of a unified whole.

See also: integrity, holism, coherence, data integrity, social cohesion.