PROBLEM • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Problem

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/prˈɑbləm/ Listen

noun

Problem n.

A question proposed for solution; a matter stated for examination or proof; hence, a matter difficult of solution or settlement; a doubtful case; a question involving doubt.

(Math.) Anything which is required to be done; as, in geometry, to bisect a line, to draw a perpendicular; or, in algebra, to find an unknown quantity. Note: Problem differs from theorem in this, that a problem is something to be done, as to bisect a triangle, to describe a circle, etc.; a theorem is something to be proved, as that all the angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles.

Plane problem (Geom.), a problem that can be solved by the use of the rule and compass.

Solid problem (Geom.), a problem requiring in its geometric solution the use of a conic section or higher curve.

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Etymology of 'Problem'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Problem" Quotes from Famous Books

... for mankind—the problem which underlies all others, and is more deeply interesting than any other—is the ascertainment of the place which Man occupies in nature and of his relations to the universe of things. Whence our ...

— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley

... pages which describe him read like a quintessential distillation of the Florentine story of the time and of the human results which it had availed to produce. The character of Savonarola, of course, remains, and must remain, a problem, despite all that has been done for the elucidation of it since Romola was written. But her reading of it is most characteristically that which her own idiosyncrasy—so akin to it in its humanitarian aspects, so superior to it in its methods of considering ...

— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope

... which God has never revealed; hence they find no solution of their difficulties; and such as are actuated by a disposition to doubt and cavil, seize upon this as an excuse for rejecting the words of Holy Writ. Others, however, fail of a satisfactory understanding of the great problem of evil, from the fact that tradition and misinterpretation have obscured the teaching of the Bible concerning the character of God, the nature of His government, and the principles of ...

— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White

... fosterer of our young visions of purity and passion: embarked in its pursuits, and acquainted with its pleasures, while the latter sated me with what is evil, the former made me incredulous to what is pure. I considered your sex as a problem which my experience had already solved. Like the French philosophers, who lose truth by endeavouring to condense it, and who forfeit the moral from their regard to the maxim, I concentrated my knowledge of women into aphorism and antitheses; and I did not dream of the exceptions, ...

— Falkland, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... had perceptibly declined. Mr. Hedges then suggested that, as there was no food already cooked in the camp, we take each a wing of one of the partridges and broil it over our small fire. It was a "beautiful thought," as Judge Bradford of Colorado used to say from the bench when some knotty legal problem relating to a case he was trying had been solved, and was speedily acted upon by both of us. But I was disappointed in finding so little meat on a partridge wing, and believed that Hedges would have chosen a leg instead of a wing, if he had pondered a moment, so I remedied the omission, and, as ...

— The Discovery of Yellowstone Park • Nathaniel Pitt Langford

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