material
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /məˈtɪə.ɹi.əl/
ipa: /məˈtɪɹ.i.əl/
note: Indic
ipa: /mɛˈʈir(ɪ)jəl/
Forms: form: materials
Etymology: From Middle English material, from Late Latin māteriālis, from Latin māteria (“wood, material, substance”), from māter (“mother”). Displaced native Middle English andweorc, andwork (“material, matter”) (from Old English andweorc (“matter, substance, material”)). Doublet of materiel.
Senses: examples: text: Asphalt, composed of oil and sand, is a widely used material for roads.
text: In trumpets for assisting the hearing, all reverbation of the trumpet must be avoided. It must be made thick, of the least elastic materials, and covered with cloth externally. For all reverbation lasts for a short time, and produces new sounds which mix with those which are coming in.
ref: 1820, Encyclopaedia Britannica; Or A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, and Miscellaneous Literature, 6th edition, volume 20, Edinburgh: Archibald Constable and Company, page 501:
text: Although there are dozens of different types of gems, among the best known and most important are […] . (Common gem materials not addressed in this article include amber, amethyst, chalcedony, garnet, lazurite, malachite, opals, peridot, rhodonite, spinel, tourmaline, turquoise and zircon.)
ref: 2012 March 24, Lee A. Groat, “Gemstones”, in American Scientist, volume 100, number 2, page 128:
synonyms: raw material
glosses: A basic matter (as metal, wood, plastic, fiber, etc.) from which the whole or the greater part of something physical (as a machine, tool, building, fabric, etc.) is made.
examples: text: boy/girlfriend material
text: marriage material
text: We have lots of presidential material in various public offices.
text: Before she married her husband, Kiersten Little considered him ideal father material.
ref: 2021 November 20, Alex Williams, “To Breed or Not to Breed?”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:
qualifier: preceded by a qualifying word
glosses: A person, or people collectively, who are qualified or suited for a certain position or activity.
examples: text: Where we once sent love letters in a sealed envelope, or stuck photographs of our children in a family album, now such private material is despatched to servers and clouds operated by people we don't know and will never meet.
ref: 2013 June 14, Jonathan Freedland, “Obama's once hip brand is now tainted]”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 1, page 18:
glosses: Apparatus for doing or making something.
examples: text: teaching materials
text: We were a warm-up act at the time; we didn't have enough original material to headline.
text: With fresh material, taxonomic conclusions are leavened by recognition that the material examined reflects the site it occupied; a herbarium packet gives one only a small fraction of the data desirable for sound conclusions. Herbarium material does not, indeed, allow one to extrapolate safely: what you see is what you get[…]
ref: 1992, Rudolf M[athias] Schuster, The Hepaticae and Anthocerotae of North America: East of the Hundredth Meridian, volume V, Chicago, Ill.: Field Museum of Natural History, →ISBN, page vii:
glosses: Something (as data, observations, perceptions or ideas) that may be incorporated, elaborated or otherwise reworked into a finished form or new form, or may serve as the basis for arriving at interpretations, judgments or conclusions.
examples: text: a piece of material
text: You'll need about a yard of material to make this.
text: Mind you, clothes were clothes in those days. There was a great deal of them, lavish both in material and in workmanship.
ref: 1977, Agatha Christie, An Autobiography, part II, London: Collins, →ISBN, page 4:
glosses: Cloth to be made into a garment; woven fabric.
examples: text: The solid materials of the mixture will settle to the bottom of the container.
text: The material of his character was basically good.
text: […] I beleeve that as they ſay of the materialls of the world, they would ſoone diſolve if the ſoule of it were taken away […]
ref: 1642, Daniel Rogers […], Naaman the Syrian, his Disease and Cvre, London: Th. Harper for Philip Nevil, unnumbered page:
text: As we age, the major arteries of our bodies frequently become thickened with plaque, a fatty material with an oatmeal-like consistency that builds up along the inner lining of blood vessels.
ref: 2013 July-August, Stephen P. Lownie, David M. Pelz, “Stents to Prevent Stroke”, in American Scientist:
glosses: The elements, constituents or substance of which something physical or non-physical composed of or can be made of.
topics: computing
engineering
graphical-user-interface
mathematics
natural-sciences
physical-sciences
sciences
glosses: An element of a design language associated with a certain style of rendering on the display.
topics: board-games
chess
games
glosses: All of a player's pieces and pawns on the chessboard, excluding the king.
synonyms: matts
glosses: The ingredients for making whisky punch.
glosses: The materiel of an army.
glosses: Things that are material.
Synonyms: word: material
Hyponyms: word: adobe
word: brick
word: cement
word: chemical substance
word: clay
word: composite
word: concrete
word: fabric
word: glass
word: metal
word: mortar
word: paper
word: plastic
word: stone
word: wood
Derived terms: sense: Terms derived from material (noun)
word: active material
sense: Terms derived from material (noun)
word: antimaterial
sense: Terms derived from material (noun)
word: archaeomaterial
sense: Terms derived from material (noun)
word: archeomaterial
sense: Terms derived from material (noun)
word: astromaterial
sense: Terms derived from material (noun)
word: bill of material
sense: Terms derived from material (noun)
word: bimaterial
sense: Terms derived from material (noun)
word: biomaterial
sense: Terms derived from material (noun)
word: bomb material
sense: Terms derived from material (noun)
word: building material
sense: Terms derived from material (noun)
word: child sexual abuse material
sense: Terms derived from material (noun)
word: collateral material
sense: Terms derived from material (noun)
word: composite material
sense: Terms derived from material (noun)
word: cryptomaterial
sense: Terms derived from material (noun)
word: ecomaterial
sense: Terms derived from material (noun)
word: genetic material
sense: Terms derived from material (noun)
word: genuine issue of material fact
sense: Terms derived from material (noun)
word: geomaterial
sense: Terms derived from material (noun)
word: hazardous material
sense: Terms derived from material (noun)
word: hazmat
sense: Terms derived from material (noun)
word: material action
sense: Terms derived from material (noun)
word: material conditional
sense: Terms derived from material (noun)
word: material culture
sense: Terms derived from material (noun)
word: material fact
sense: Terms derived from material (noun)
word: material handling
sense: Terms derived from material (noun)
word: material heresy
sense: Terms derived from material (noun)
word: material implication
sense: Terms derived from material (noun)
word: materialisation
sense: Terms derived from material (noun)
word: materialise
sense: Terms derived from material (noun)
word: materialism
sense: Terms derived from material (noun)
word: materialist
sense: Terms derived from material (noun)
word: materialization
sense: Terms derived from material (noun)
word: materialize
sense: Terms derived from material (noun)
word: material logic
sense: Terms derived from material (noun)
word: materially
sense: Terms derived from material (noun)
word: materialness
sense: Terms derived from material (noun)
word: material noun
sense: Terms derived from material (noun)
word: material science
sense: Terms derived from material (noun)
word: materials science
sense: Terms derived from material (noun)
word: material support
sense: Terms derived from material (noun)
word: material witness
sense: Terms derived from material (noun)
word: metamaterial
sense: Terms derived from material (noun)
word: micromaterial
sense: Terms derived from material (noun)
word: multimaterial
sense: Terms derived from material (noun)
word: nanomaterial
sense: Terms derived from material (noun)
word: nonmaterial
sense: Terms derived from material (noun)
word: non-material
sense: Terms derived from material (noun)
word: positive material identification
sense: Terms derived from material (noun)
word: postmaterial
sense: Terms derived from material (noun)
word: postmaterialism
sense: Terms derived from material (noun)
word: postmaterialist
sense: Terms derived from material (noun)
word: raw material
sense: Terms derived from material (noun)
word: reading material
sense: Terms derived from material (noun)
word: shawl material
sense: Terms derived from material (noun)
word: sociomaterial
sense: Terms derived from material (noun)
word: strategic material
sense: Terms derived from material (noun)
word: supermaterial
sense: Terms derived from material (noun)
word: time and material
sense: Terms derived from material (noun)
word: trimaterial
Related terms: matter
materiel