A quantum mechanical modeling method used to investigate the electronic structure of molecules using functionals that describe the spatially dependent electron density, rather than the wavefunction as in
ab initio and semi-empirical quantum chemical methods.
Source:
PAC, 2016, 88, 239. 'Glossary of terms used in computational drug design, part II (IUPAC Recommendations 2015)' on page 245 (https://doi.org/10.1515/pac-2012-1204)