emergent

comparative more emergent · superlative most emergent

1. Emerging; coming into view or into existence; nascent; new.
2. Arising unexpectedly, especially if also calling for immediate reaction.

   The chief precepts of their priests enjoin the strict keeping of their Lents, which are at least seven months in every year, and are not to be dispensed with on the most emergent necessity. Letter 43

   1763, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, The Turkish Embassy Letters

3. especiallymedicineConstituting an emergency.

   Bleeding manifestations in chronic DIC are more subacute than in acute DIC, but may become emergent as DIC progresses.

   2001, Christopher Hillyer, Krista L. Hillyer, Frank Strobl, Leigh Jefferies, Leslie Silberstein, Handbook of Transfusion Medicine, Academic Press, →ISBN, page 206

   3 more examples

   Therefore, patients with ulcerative colitis should ideally be treated before they become emergent cases with toxic megacolon or perforation of the colon.

   1987, Navy Medicine, page 8

   As a rule, esophageal disorders become emergent when the airway is compromised either by the initial insult or by a high risk of aspiration.

   2017, A. Joseph Layon, Andrea Gabrielli, Mihae Yu, Kenneth E. Wood, Civetta, Taylor, & Kirby's Critical Care Medicine, Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, →ISBN

   Before communication and cognition impair decision-making, and before the medical needs for interventions become emergent, advance decisions about nutrition and ventilation must be discussed.

   2019, Walter R. Frontera, Joel A. DeLisa, Bruce M. Gans, Lawrence R. Robinson, DeLisa's Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation: Principles and Practice, Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, →ISBN

4. biologyTaller than the surrounding vegetation.
5. biologyHaving leaves and flowers above the water.
6. video gamesHaving gameplay that arises from its mechanics, rather than a linear storyline.

   In short, emergent games are ones that allow a huge range of possibilities and don't dictate a strict, linear flow of events. A strategy game is emergent because so many units can interact and have some effect on each other.

   2008, Jim Rossignol, This Gaming Life: Travels in Three Cities, page 126

7. epistemologyThat arises at a higher level than that of its components and is not explainable by the behaviour of said components taken individually; having properties as a whole that are more complex than the properties contributed by each of the components individually.

   an emergent property

   1 more example

   A high-level phenomenon is strongly emergent with respect to a low-level domain when the high-level phenomenon arises from the low-level domain, but truths concerning that phenomenon are not deducible even in principle from truths in the low-level domain.[…] A high-level phenomenon is weakly emergent with respect to a low-level domain when the high-level phenomenon arises from the low-level domain, but truths concerning that phenomenon are unexpected given the principles governing the low-level domain.

   2008, David J. Chalmers, “Strong and Weak Emergence”, in Philip Clayton, Paul Davies, editors, The Re-Emergence of Emergence: The Emergentist Hypothesis from Science to Religion, →DOI

plural emergents

1. biologyA plant whose root system grows underwater, but whose shoot, leaves and flowers grow up and above the water.