For practitioners, a derivative is not path-dependent if its value can be expressed as an expectation of discounted future values at some specific tenor $T$
$$
V(0) = E\left[ \left. V(T) \exp{\left(-\int_0^T r(s)ds\right)} \right| {\cal{I}_0} \right]
$$
Obviously this is convenient when it happens because one only needs to worry about probability densities inside the expectation for the single tenor $T$.
American-exercise options fail to meet this criterion since their value depends on an exercise strategy, written here as a stopping time $\tau$
$$
A(0) = \sup_{\tau \leq T} E\left[ \left. V(\tau) \exp{\left(-\int_0^\tau r(s)ds\right)} \right| {\cal{I}_0} \right]
$$
Other options fail to meet the criterion because their value depends on fixings $t<T$, or barrier conditions, etc. etc. In many such cases, the path dependence is weak, in the sense that one can introduce a single extra dimension to the SDE/PDE, for example a current tabulation of running average price, and solve accordingly.