Sorites paradox
Etymology
From Greek "sōritēs" (heaped, from "sōros," a heap), and attributed to Eubulides of Miletus in the 4th century BC. The name literally invokes the pile of grains at the paradox’s heart.
noun phrase · /soh-RY-teez PAR-uh-doks/
The puzzle that removing one grain from a heap never seems to destroy the heap, yet repeating this leaves no heap at all.
What it names
A handle for the trouble caused by vague words with no sharp boundary — reach for it whenever “how many make a difference?” has no clean answer, from bald heads to poverty lines.
Example
Deciding when a few late nights become a sleep problem runs into the sorites paradox — no single night is the culprit.
Related idea
It shares the identity-through-change worry of the Ship of Theseus, but its bite is about vague predicates and fuzzy boundaries rather than the persistence of a single object.
See also