Meanings
- especiallynot comparablemathematicsThroughout separate parts, but not necessarily throughout the whole.
piecewise linear model which can serve as the base of any other
2013 March 9, Domine Leenaerts, Wim M. G. van Bokhoven, Piecewise Linear Modeling and Analysis, Springer Science & Business Media, →ISBN2 more examples
automatic reconstruction of accurate, concise, piecewise smooth surface models from scattered range data
1994 July 24, Hugues Hoppe, Tony DeRose, Tom Duchamp, Mark Halstead, Hubert Jin, John McDonald, Jean Schweitzer, Werner Stuetzle, “Piecewise smooth surface reconstruction”, in Proceedings of the 21st annual conference on Computer graphics and interactive techniques (SIGGRAPH '94), New York, NY, USA: Association for Computing Machinery, →DOI, →ISBN, pages 295–302theory of piecewise differentiable functions and, specifically, piecewise differentiable equations
2012, Stefan Scholtes, Introduction to Piecewise Differentiable Equations (SpringerBriefs in Optimization), New York: Springer, →ISBN
- not comparablemathematicsDefined by subfunctions and subdomains
is a piecewise function but not a PLQ function
2019 September 1, Deepak Kumar, Yves Lucet, “Computation of the Epsilon-Subdifferential of Convex Piecewise Linear-Quadratic Functions in Optimal Worst-Case Time”, in Set-Valued and Variational Analysis, volume 27, number 3, →DOI, →ISSN, pages 623–6412 more examples
Our formula is not defined as a piecewise function, but rather as a single closed-form expression
2018 April 1, Ivan Matić, Radoš Radoičić, Dan Stefanica, “A sharp Pólya-based approximation to the normal cumulative distribution function”, in Applied Mathematics and Computation, volume 322, →DOI, →ISSN, pages 111–122a piecewise function that consists of a single quadratic term and a constant term
2022, Ethan T. Wang, “Efficient Quantum State Preparation for the Cauchy Distribution Based on Piecewise Arithmetic”, in IEEE Transactions on Quantum Engineering, volume 3, →DOI, →ISSN, pages 1–9Synonyms: piecewise-defined
- abbreviationclippingnot comparablemathematicsClipping of piecewise linear.
In piecewise regression we replace the concept
1970 September 28, Victor E. McZgee, Willard T. Carleton, “Piecewise Regression”, in Journal of the American Statistical Association, volume 65, number 331, →DOI, →ISSN, pages 1109–11242 more examples
we can get arbitrarily close to any piecewise function with knot locations satisfying
2000 July 28, J. Pittman, C.A. Murthy, “Fitting optimal piecewise linear functions using genetic algorithms”, in IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence, volume 22, number 7, →DOI, pages 701–718In essence, a piecewise function over an interval
2016 November 28, Daniel Berjon, Guillermo Gallego, Carlos Cuevas, Francisco Moran, Narciso Garcia, “Optimal Piecewise Linear Function Approximation for GPU-Based Applications”, in IEEE Transactions on Cybernetics, volume 46, number 11, →DOI, →ISSN, pages 2584–2595
Synonyms & antonyms
adjectiveDefined by subfunctions and subdomains
Origin
- Englishpiece
- Proto-Indo-European*weyd-
- Proto-Indo-European*wéydos
- Proto-Indo-European*weyd-s-ós
- Proto-Germanic*wīsaz
- Englishpiecewise
Translations
Catalan a trossos
- a trossosmathematics: throughout separate parts but not necessarily throughout the whole
Finnish paloittain, paloittain
- paloittainpiece at a time
- paloittainmathematics: throughout separate parts but not necessarily throughout the whole
French par morceaux
- par morceauxmathematics: throughout separate parts but not necessarily throughout the whole
Icelandic á köflum
- á köflummathematics: throughout separate parts but not necessarily throughout the whole
Italian a tratti
- a trattimathematics: throughout separate parts but not necessarily throughout the whole
Japanese 区分的に
- 区分的に (kubunteki-ni)mathematics: throughout separate parts but not necessarily throughout the whole
Polish odcinkowo, po kawałku
- odcinkowopiece at a time
- po kawałkupiece at a time
- przedziałowomathematics: throughout separate parts but not necessarily throughout the whole
Portuguese por partes, em troços
- por partesmathematics: throughout separate parts but not necessarily throughout the whole
- em troçosmathematics: throughout separate parts but not necessarily throughout the whole
Spanish por piezas, por tramos
- por piezaspiece at a time
- por tramosmathematics: throughout separate parts but not necessarily throughout the whole
- por partesmathematics: throughout separate parts but not necessarily throughout the whole
- a trozosmathematics: throughout separate parts but not necessarily throughout the whole
Swedish stegvis, steg för steg
- stegvispiece at a time
- steg för stegpiece at a time
- etappvispiece at a time
Cite this entry
piecewise. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/piecewise
“piecewise.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/piecewise. Accessed November 2, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “piecewise,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/piecewise.
Source: piecewise on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.