multidisciplinary

adjective

mul·​ti·​dis·​ci·​plin·​ary ˌməl-tē-ˈdi-sə-plə-ˌner-ē 

-ˌtī-,

 especially British  -ˌdi-sə-ˈpli-nə-rē

: combining or involving more than one discipline or field of study : interdisciplinary

Treatment requires a multidisciplinary approach involving physicians, nutritionists, psychologists, trainers, and gynecologists …

—Michelle L. Cameron Donaldson

However, the task of interpreting such spectra … will take a multidisciplinary team of astrophysicists, Earth scientists, climate scientists, and biologists.

—Sarah Scoles

Indeed, nanotechnology may change the way we think about mechanical engineering altogether, making it a more multidisciplinary field, one as concerned with atomic-level effects as electrical engineering or chemistry is.

—Stephen L. Girshick and Arun Majumdar

Did you know?

A discipline is a field of study. So a multidisciplinary (or interdisciplinary) course is a team-taught course in which students are asked to understand a single subject as it's seen by two or more traditional disciplines. Multidisciplinary teaching can open students' eyes to different views of a subject that they had never considered before. A multidisciplinary panel discussion, on the other hand, presents views from scholars in different fields but may leave any merging of the information to the audience.

Examples of multidisciplinary in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

First published in 1869, Nature is the world's leading multidisciplinary science journal. —Katherine Bourzac, Scientific American, 7 May 2025

Born in Kano, Nigeria, and now based in Antwerp, Belgium, the multidisciplinary artist has spent decades constructing an expansive and dynamic oeuvre that resists easy categorization. —Okla Jones, Essence, 3 May 2025

The script, co-written with multidisciplinary artist Vikki Bardot, draws inspiration from the large-scale cinematic vision of Godfrey Reggio and the archival essay style of Adam Curtis and Chris Marker. —Melanie Goodfellow, Deadline, 28 Apr. 2025

Kennedy delivered his speech to thousands of health care, law enforcement and business officials on Thursday near the end of the four-day convention that focused on finding multidisciplinary solutions to America’s drug addiction crisis. —Sandy Mazza, USA Today, 26 Apr. 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1944, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for multidisciplinary

• cardiopulmonary
• interdisciplinary
• postrevolutionary
• prerevolutionary
• accessary
• adversary
• ancillary
• arbitrary
• aviary
• axillary
• beriberi
• breviary