Arguably, the application of thoughts; hence, an antonym of “theory,” which is the thinking of them. The hackneyed saying that what’s good in theory may not be so in practice presents the two as antipodal (if perhaps reciprocal) modes. One finds variants of this implied splitting throughout the descriptive language of academic work that falls between the theoretical and the practical—namely, “applied science” (implying a non-applied science) and “practical arts” (suggesting, suggestively, a series of impractical arts). Practice assumes tangible labor and tangible outcomes, which take the form of technological advances and/or physical products that bear some commercial value. A “practicum,” in an academic setting, often refers to seminars or lab courses that emulate situations and environments outside the academy. In common usage, practice (e.g., “to practice medicine,” “to practice law,” “to have a private practice”) is something that professionals do once they are deemed professional by their accrediting body. A scholar will rarely say that he/she “practices” the study of Quattrocento literatura, but artists very consistently refer to their “artistic practices.” It is possible that this latter usage may reflect the arts taking on the semblance and language of a “scientific” (i.e., progressive, continually self-surpassing, knowledge-producing) activity so as to better fit within the modern university’s general orientation. Practice is also used to refer to repetitive training in a field, as one may do on an actual field (e.g., “I am going to baseball practice”) or in a disciplinary field (e.g., years of learning and paper-writing prior to a dissertation). In this usage, the term “practice” may apply to all activity prior to one’s full acceptance (or professionalization) in a field, along the lines of the familiar adage, “practice makes perfect.”