holism, noun

/ˈhəʊlɪzm/
Origin:
Greek, EnglishShow more From Greek hol- combining form of hólos whole + English noun-forming suffix -ism.
A term coined by J.C. Smuts to designate the tendency in nature to produce ‘wholes’ from the ordered grouping of units. So holistic adjective, holistically adverb.
Note:
Now in general English use, occurring often in phrases such as ‘holistic medicine’.
1926 J.C. Smuts Holism & Evol. 99The whole-making, holistic tendency, or Holism..is seen at all stages of existence.
1926 J.C. Smuts Holism & Evol. 127There is a synthesis which makes the elements or parts act as one or holistically.
1945 Outspan 6 June 41The principles of Holism — that in this universe we are all members one of another, and that selfishness is the grand refusal and denial of life.
1970 Cape Times 16 May (Weekend Mag.) 2Smuts the soldier-philosopher developed the concept of ‘Holism’, which derived from Humanism — the linking of all good things in one perfect whole. Holism was Smuts’s intellectual attempt to give a meaning to the world, and man’s place in it.
1989 B. Huntley et al. S. Afr. Environments into 21st C. 119The Chinese talk of the ‘yin’ and the ‘yang’, the Africans speak of ‘ubuntu’ and a former Prime Minister of South Africa, Jan Smuts, called it ‘holism’.
1990 P. Spies in Sunday Times 4 Mar. 25Current developments in systems thinking are strongly influenced by Smuts’s holism...His Holism and Evolution is used as a standard reference book for systems thinking in American universities today.
A term coined by J.C. Smuts to designate the tendency in nature to produce ‘wholes’ from the ordered grouping of units. So holistic adjective, holistically adverb.
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hold, verb transitivev.Hollander, nounn.
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