1. a standard or body of corresponding standards which claims to explain or foretell a multitude of interrelated phenomena. 2. within the philosophy of science, a set of logically correlated explanatory hypotheses which are stable with a body of empirical facts and which might propose more empirical unions. 3. with regard to general usage, abstract or speculative thought in contrast to practice or authenticity.
THEORY: “The theory has never been proven, nor disproven.”