[TeMPOraL]

Is it really an error if everything from Google to Merriam-Webster apparently makes it?

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/methodology

> a body of methods, rules, and postulates employed by a discipline : a particular procedure or set of procedures

I.e. methodology is a set of methods.

[yesenadam]

I didn't quite understand your question, but yes it's really an error. No, that's not what methodology means. Although if everyone uses it to mean the same as method, as seems increasingly the case, then that will be what it means and be printed in dictionaries. Personally, I like short words and think they should be preferred, besides the two concepts being entirely different.

[TeMPOraL]

> Although if everyone uses it to mean the same as method, as seems increasingly the case, then that will be what it means and be printed in dictionaries.

As far as I've ever heard or seen this word used, "methodology" is used to mean "a set of methods". Maybe you're a bit confused by the fact that a method can be usually destructured into sub-methods - or conversely, a "methodology" is just a single method in the set of methods one meta-level up.