kórisme

Kórisme is a term that appears in a small body of scholarly writing to denote the practice or result of defining and bounding elements within a system. It is not widely standardized and should be understood as a contested or emergent concept rather than a fixed theory.

Etymology and attestation: The linguistic origin of kórisme is uncertain. The form with an acute accent on the o suggests influence from languages that mark vowel quality, but there is no consensus about its etymology. It may be used as a neologism or a loanword in cross-disciplinary discussions.

Usage and interpretation: In philosophy and critical theory, kórisme is described as the act of designation that assigns terms to phenomena and thereby creates categories. In literary studies, it may reference how genres or motifs are bounded and defined by discourse. In social science, it can describe how social boundaries are created through naming and classification. Because it lacks a canonical definition, interpretations vary across authors and contexts.

Relation to related concepts: The idea resembles broader discussions of taxonomy, nomenclature, and boundary-making, where the emphasis is on how classifications shape understanding and action. Kórisme is thus often treated as a meta-concept about the act of naming rather than as a concrete phenomenon with a single universal formulation.

See also: Taxonomy, Nomenclature, Demarcation, Boundary, Classification.