Meaning & use
directionality
Last updated
Meanings
noununcountabletechnical
The property of having a particular direction, or of working or flowing in one direction only.
Grammar: Usually no article: the directionality of the signal matters.
Patterns
- the directionality of something
Engineers tested the directionality of the new microphone.
The directionality of the current changes every second.
Wood grain has a strong directionality that affects how it splits.
noununcountabletechnical
The way a language or script runs, for example from left to right or right to left.
Grammar: Used about writing and reading, as in text directionality.
Patterns
- text directionality
Arabic has a right-to-left directionality.
Designers must consider text directionality when building a website.
The directionality of the script changed how we laid out the page.
noununcountabletechnical
The way a relationship or cause runs from one thing to another, such as which of two events causes the other.
Grammar: Used in research when asking which variable affects which.
Patterns
- the directionality of an effect
The study could not prove the directionality of the link between sleep and mood.
Researchers argued about the directionality of the relationship.
It is hard to decide the directionality of cause and effect here.
Common combinations
- text directionality
- Text directionality matters for right-to-left languages.
- directionality of the signal
- The directionality of the signal improves with a larger antenna.
- microphone directionality
- Microphone directionality decides what sounds are picked up.
- causal directionality
- The authors questioned the causal directionality.
Synonyms and how they differ
- orientation
- Orientation describes how something is positioned, while directionality is about the way it points or runs.
- polarity
- Polarity is used for opposite poles, such as in magnets or electric charge, and is narrower.
- heading
- Heading is the direction a moving thing is going at one moment, not a built-in property.
Opposites
Word family
- direction noun
- the way something faces or moves
- directional adjective
- relating to or showing direction
- bidirectional adjective
- moving or working in two directions
- unidirectional adjective
- moving in only one direction
Commonly confused: directionality or directness?
directionality vs directness
Directness describes speaking or behaving frankly, which is different from the technical idea of direction in directionality.
Practice
The researchers could not prove the ____ of the relationship, so they did not know whether stress caused poor sleep or poor sleep caused stress.
Choose one answer.
Directionality is which way a cause or effect runs. Directness is about frankness, and directive and directory have other meanings.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “directionality”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.