A rule of thumb is a principle with broad application that is not intended to be strictly accurate or reliable for every situation. It is an easily learned and easily applied procedure for approximately calculating or recalling some value, or for making some determination. Compare this to heuristic, a similar concept used in mathematical discourse, psychology, and computer science, particularly in algorithm design.
Read more about Rule Of Thumb: Origin of The Phrase, Thumb As Measurement Device, Thumb Used For Regulation, Examples of Usage
Famous quotes containing the words rule of, rule and/or thumb:
“The world is filled with the proverbs and acts and winkings of a base prudence, which is a devotion to matter, as if we possessed no other faculties than the palate, the nose, the touch, the eye and ear; a prudence which adores the Rule of Three, which never subscribes, which never gives, which seldom lends, and asks but one question of any project,—Will it bake bread?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“It is an axiom, enforced by all the experience of the ages, that they who rule industrially will rule politically.”
—Aneurin Bevan (1897–1960)
“Your small hands, precisely equal to my own—
only the thumb is larger, longer—in these hands
I could trust the world, or in many hands like these,
handling power-tools or steering-wheel
or touching a human face ...”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)