DEFINITION • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Definition

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/dˌɛfənˈɪʃən/ Listen

noun

Definition n.

1.

The act of defining; determination of the limits; as, a telescope accurate in definition.

2.

Act of ascertaining and explaining the signification; a description of a thing by its properties; an explanation of the meaning of a word or term; as, the definition of "circle;" the definition of "wit;" an exact definition; a loose definition. "Definition being nothing but making another understand by words what the term defined stands for."

3.

Description; sort. (R.) "A new creature of another definition."

4.

(Logic) An exact enunciation of the constituents which make up the logical essence.

5.

(Opt.) Distinctness or clearness, as of an image formed by an optical instrument; precision in detail.

Synonyms: Definition, Explanation, Description. A definition is designed to settle a thing in its compass and extent; an explanation is intended to remove some obscurity or misunderstanding, and is therefore more extended and minute; a description enters into striking particulars with a view to interest or impress by graphic effect. It is not therefore true, though often said, that description is only an extended definition. "Logicians distinguish definitions into essential and accidental. An essential definition states what are regarded as the constituent parts of the essence of that which is to be defined; and an accidental definition lays down what are regarded as circumstances belonging to it, viz., properties or accidents, such as causes, effects, etc."

See images of 'Definition'

Etymology of 'Definition'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Definition" Quotes from Famous Books

... [19] Coleridge's definition of poetry as "the best words in their right places" may be fitly alluded to here. It occurs ...

— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell

... may say, words in their best order—Coleridge's equally admirable definition of prose. It is splendid prose, won only from great nobility of emotion. But it is not poetry, not the best words in the best order announcing that the feeling expressed has been experienced with the highest ...

— The Lyric - An Essay • John Drinkwater

... Percy. "The atom is extremely small, much too small to be seen with the most powerful microscope; but you know all things are relative and we always measure one thing in terms of another. We say a foot is twelve inches and an inch is one-twelfth of a foot, and there we stop with a definition of each expressed in terms of the other, and both depending upon an arbitrary standard that somebody once adopted; and yet, while the foot is known in most countries, it is rare that two countries have exactly the same standard for ...

— The Story of the Soil • Cyril G. Hopkins

... systems of planting usually employed are known as "drills," "rows" and "hills." I do not remember ever seeing a definition giving the exact distinctions between them; and in horticultural writing they seem to be used, to some extent at least, interchangeably. As a rule "drills" refer to the growing of plants continuously in rows, such as onions, ...

— Home Vegetable Gardening • F. F. Rockwell

... still to ask: How speedy? At what degree of speed; in what particular points of this variable course, which varies in velocity, but can never stop till Time itself stops, does revolution begin and end; cease to be ordinary mutation, and again become such? It is a thing that will depend on definition ...

— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

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