{
  "id": "process.general",
  "term": "process",
  "sense": "general",
  "pos": "noun",
  "status": "review",
  "level": 4,
  "arena": "process",
  "domain": "process",
  "style": null,
  "definition": "A set of changes that occur in something over time.",
  "folk_gloss": null,
  "emergence": {
    "components": [
      "change.process",
      "time.dimension",
      "occurs.event",
      "sets.grouped"
    ],
    "interaction": "Changes occur in time together as events, grouped into a coherent pattern over time.",
    "novel_properties": [
      "temporal sequence",
      "structured change",
      "emergent coherence"
    ]
  },
  "examples": [
    {
      "text": "The Mississippi River delta grows by 100 square kilometers per century due to sediment deposition from seasonal floods.",
      "domain": "geology"
    },
    {
      "text": "The Linux kernel evolved from 10,000 lines of code in 1991 to over 28 million lines by 2023 through distributed development.",
      "domain": "computing"
    },
    {
      "text": "The Treaty of Westphalia in 1648 restructured European sovereignty, ending the Thirty Years' War and formalizing state borders.",
      "domain": "institutions"
    }
  ],
  "relations": [],
  "used_by": [
    "ability.capacity",
    "analysis.method",
    "application.use",
    "computer.digital",
    "court.legal",
    "game.playful",
    "learn.cognitive",
    "look.visual",
    "measurement.quantitative",
    "power.energy",
    "solution.answer",
    "study.learning",
    "subject.entity",
    "technology.tool",
    "training.skill",
    "treatment.medical",
    "verb.grammatical",
    "wireless.electrical"
  ],
  "forms": [
    "process",
    "processed",
    "processes",
    "processing"
  ],
  "closed": true,
  "provenance": {
    "author": "openrouter:openai/gpt-oss-120b",
    "date": "2026-07-29",
    "confidence": 0.6,
    "reconciled": {
      "by": "openrouter:qwen/qwen3-235b-a22b-2507",
      "date": "2026-07-31",
      "changed": "definition",
      "note": "Added 'occurs.event' and 'sets.grouped' to components to align with the definition's reliance on events occurring and grouping. Definition was correct but record was under-specified."
    }
  },
  "canonical": "https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-process.general"
}