paradigm

It's one of my favourite words.  Paradigm. Wonderful definition from my trusty Chambers 21st Century Dictionary, page 998, quote 'a conceptual framework within which scientific theories are constructed, which is consistent within itself, but may need completely revising as evidence challenging the factual accuracy of some aspects of it accumulates'. I first came across the word reading Thomas S. Kuhn as a history undergraduate.  Ah, those were the days.  How often do you come across great words like that anymore?