nature
Part of speech: noun
Morphological type: simple
Topics: government
military
politics
war
Etymology: Etymology tree
Proto-Indo-European *ǵenh₁-
Proto-Indo-European *ǵn̥h₁-sḱé-ti
Proto-Italic *gnāskōrder.
Latin nāscor
Proto-Indo-European *-tew-?
Proto-Indo-European *-r-eh₂?
Latin -tūra
Latin nātūralbor.
Old French naturebor.
Middle English nature
English nature
From Middle English nature, natur, from Old French nature, from Latin nātūra (“birth, origin, natural constitution or quality”), future participle from perfect passive participle (g)natus (“born”), from deponent verb (g)nasci (“to be born, originate”) + future participle suffix -urus.
Displaced native Middle English erd (“character, nature, disposition”) from Old English eard (compare German Art (“nature, character, kind, type”)); and Middle English kynde (“character, disposition, nature”) from Old English ġecynd. More at kind.
Inflected forms:
form: natures
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: natuer
pos: noun
tags: alternative
obsolete
Senses:
gloss: The way things are, the totality of all things in the physical universe and their order, especially the physical world in contrast to spiritual realms and flora and fauna as distinct from human conventions, art, and technology.
pos: noun
tags: capitalized
often
uncountable
examples: I oft admire
How Nature, wise and frugal, could commit
Such disproportions.
In the works of nature we find, in many instances, beauty and sublimity involved among circumstances, which are either indifferent, or which obstruct the general effect: and it is only by a train of experiments, that we can separate those circumstances from the rest... Accordingly, the inexperienced artist, when he copies nature, will copy her servilely... and the beauties of his performances will be encumbered with a number of superfluous or disagreeable concomitants. Experience and observation alone can enable him to make this determination: to exhibit the principles of beauty pure and unadulterated, and to form a creation of his own, more faultless, than ever fell under the observation of his senses.
Most persons in striving after effect lose the likeness when they should go together to produce a good effect you must copy Nature: leave Nature for an imaginary effect & you lose all. Nature as Nature cannot be exceeded, and as your object it [is] to copy Nature twere the hight of folly to look at any thing else to produce that copy.
Nature has caprices which art cannot imitate.
Nothing was more common, in those days, than to interpret all meteoric appearances, and other natural phenomena, that occurred with less regularity than the rise and set of sun and moon, as so many revelations from a supernatural source... But what shall we say, when an individual discovers a revelation, addressed to himself alone, on the same vast sheet of record! In such a case, it could only be the symptom of a highly disordered mental state, when a man, rendered morbidly self-contemplative by long, intense, and secret pain, had extended his egotism over the whole expanse of nature, until the firmament itself should appear no more than a fitting page for his soul's history and fate.
Nature has good intentions, of course, but, as Aristotle once said, she cannot carry them out. When I look at a landscape I cannot help seeing all its defects.
Nature’s logic was too horrid for him to care for.
...they will shout at you, it is no use protesting: it is a case of twice two makes four! Nature does not ask your permission, she has nothing to do with your wishes, and whether you like her laws or dislike them, you are bound to accept her as she is, and consequently all her conclusions. A wall, you see, is a wall... Merciful Heavens! but what do I care for the laws of nature and arithmetic, when, for some reason I dislike those laws and the fact that twice two makes four? Of course I cannot break through the wall by battering my head against it if I really have not the strength to knock it down, but I am not going to be reconciled to it simply because it is a stone wall and I have not the strength.
Man was entirely at the mercy of nature—a mere scavenger who eked out a miserable existence as a food-gatherer and an eater of shell-fish.
Freamon: She too young for you, boy... They get younger, William. Skinnier too. You don't... 's just the nature of things. Age is age, fat is fat, nature’s nature.
Moreland: Pitiful.
Freamon: Pitiless. Nature don't care. Nature just is.
As in much of biology, the most satisfying truths in ecology derive from manipulative experimentation. Tinker with nature and quantify how it responds.
Gómez Ortega... explicitly ordered them to study only fresh plants, in situ, to draw every part, and 'to copy nature exactly without presuming to correct it or decorate it as some draughtsmen are used to doing, adding colours and ornaments drawn from their imagination'.
As Hurricane Irma prepares to strike, it's worth remembering that Mother Nature never intended us to live here.
The tao of Lao Tzu was a cosmic tao, inner and unwritten, a tao of Nature, while the tao of Confucius was moral and written.
Nature doesn't lie.
The laws of nature are written in the language of mathematics.
Tectonic activity is part of nature, so there's no way to stop earthquakes.
gloss: The particular way someone or something is, especially
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
examples: Vliss.: ... One touch of nature makes the whole world kin,
That all with one consent praise new-borne gaudes,
Though they are made and moulded of things past,
And goe to dust, that is a little guilt,
More laud then guilt ore-dusted.
Lady. ...Glamys thou art, and Cawdor, and shalt be
What thou art promis'd: yet doe I feare thy Nature,
It is too full o'th' Milke of humane kindnesse,
To catch the neerest way.
Nature passes norture.
Men may change their Climate, but they cannot their Nature.
Domestic animals of a base nature and not fit for food, are not the subjects of theft. This rule includes dogs and cats.
His own better nature which... was magnanimous and heroic, moved and won him.
The Monophysites held that the two Natures were so united, that although the 'One Christ' was partly Human and partly Divine, His two Natures became by their union only one Nature.
Mark hardly knew whether to believe this or not. He already began to suspect that Roswell was something of a humbug, and though it was not in his nature to form a causeless dislike, he certainly did not feel disposed to like Roswell.
The phrase ‘nature and nurture’ is a convenient jingle of words, for it separates under two distinct heads the innumerable elements of which personality is composed.
Being by nature of a cheerful disposition, the symptom did not surprise his servant, late private of the same famous regiment, who was laying breakfast in an adjoining room.
The contrast between nature and grace, between human appetites and interests and religion, is not absolute, but relative.
Couples bitching at each other is human nature.
Freamon: She too young for you, boy... They get younger, William. Skinnier too. You don't... 's just the nature of things. Age is age, fat is fat, nature's nature.
Moreland: Pitiful.
Freamon: Pitiless. Nature don't care. Nature just is.
Unlike the static conception of nature or nurture, epigenic research demonstrates how genes and environments continuously interact to produce characteristics throughout a lifetime.
It's not in my nature to steal.
You can't help feeling that way. It's human nature.
Power corrupts. That's just the nature of the beast.
gloss: The particular way someone or something is, especially
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
examples: For the French, it was impossible for them to serve her in that nature.
A dispute of this nature caused mischief.
Carried somehow, somewhither, for some reason, on these surging floods, were these travelers, of errand not wholly obvious to their fellows, yet of such sort as to call into query alike the nature of their errand and their own relations.
And yet, though you could not actually hear what the man was saying, you could not be in any doubt about its general nature.
The extent and nature of Bach's influence on Haydn is now due for further reassessment.
What was the nature of your relationship with the deceased?
The best medium might be petroleum, liquified gas, or something of that nature.
gloss: The particular way someone or something is, especially
pos: noun
tags: UK
countable
obsolete
uncountable
examples: ...One Hundred of each Nature of Case-Shot...
B.L. cartridges have lubricators choked inside the cartridges of 40-pr. and lower natures.
gloss: The vital functions or strength of someone or something, especially (now dialect) as requiring nourishment or careful maintenance or (medicine) as a force of regeneration without special treatment.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
examples: Any such corrasiue, sharpe or eager medicine... as the said H. shal think his nature is vnable to suffer...
For nature creſſant does not grovve alone / In thevvs and bulkes, but as this temple vvaxes, / The invvard ſervice of the minde and ſoule / Grovves vvide vvithal, […]
I returned hungry... and had only snow to supply the calls of nature.
The timber... is found to be brittle and effete; or, to use the workman's expression, 'its nature is gone'.
Nature is unable to repair the extensive injury.
The prison allowance will not support nature.
My iron’s just comin’ to natur’.
Hungry-groond, ground credited to be so much enchanted that a person passing over it would faint if they did not use something to support nature.
gloss: A requirement or powerful impulse of the body's physical form, especially
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
examples: He withdrew from the Company to ease Nature.
The women tell you to stop because they's feeling the call of nature. If you don't stop they pee in your lorry.
I hear the call of nature.
gloss: A requirement or powerful impulse of the body's physical form, especially
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
examples: She marvelled "What he saw in such a baby
"As that prim, silent, cold Aurora Raby?"
...Why Adeline had this slight prejudice
...For me appears a question far too nice,
Since Adeline was liberal by Nature;
But Nature’s Nature, and has more caprices
Than I have time, or will to take to pieces...
He had placed a spell on her by means of a cunjer bag... Its effect was to rob her of connubial allure—in her words, ‘it stole her nature’.
Every time I felt nature for her, she would rub something on her hands and face to take away my nature.
Freamon: She too young for you, boy... They get younger, William. Skinnier too. You don't... 's just the nature of things. Age is age, fat is fat, nature’s nature.
Moreland: Pitiful.
Freamon: Pitiless. Nature don't care. Nature just is.
gloss: A requirement or powerful impulse of the body's physical form, especially
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
examples: Lady. ... Come you Spirits,
That tend on mortall thoughts, vnsex me here,
...make thick my blood,
Stop vp th'accesse, and passage to Remorse,
That no compunctious visitings of Nature
Shake my fell purpose...
Have we not seen (the blood of Laius shed)
The murd'ring son ascend his parent's bed,
Thro' violated Nature force his way,
And stain the sacred womb where once he lay?
She had no nature, nor indeed any passion but that of money.
...I could bear much. I'd not move nor scream
While you wrote the red stripes:
But there's no nature in you...
gloss: A product of the body's physical form, especially semen and vaginal fluids, menstrual fluid, and (obsolete) feces.
pos: noun
tags: archaic
countable
uncountable
examples: If a man want to break his wife from some man, he steals this dishcloth... an' he ketches her nachure in this dishcloth...
gloss: A part of the body's physical form, especially (obsolete) the female genitalia.
pos: noun
tags: archaic
countable
uncountable
examples: ... offer her the Horse, and... wash her Nature with cold Water ...
Related words: antenatal
innate
nascent
natal
nation
national
nationality
native
nativism
nativity
nativization
natural
naturalism
naturehood
nature morte
naturism
naturist
naturity
naturize
naturopath
naturopathy
perinatal
prenatal
Derived words: against nature
all nature
allow nature to take her course
allow nature to take its course
animal nature
answer the call of nature
antinature
appeal to nature
back to nature
back-to-nature
bad nature
better angels of one's nature
better angels of someone's nature
better angles of one's nature
better nature
book of nature
Buddha-nature
by nature
call of nature
child-nature
course of nature
crime against nature
Dame Nature
debt-for-nature
debt of nature
defy the laws of nature
disnature
ease nature
force of nature
freak of nature
good nature
human nature
in nature
in the nature of things
law of nature
laws of nature
let nature take her course
let nature take its course
light of nature
Mother Nature
naturable
nature abhors a vacuum
nature beckons
nature being
nature-blessed
nature-bound
nature boy
nature calls
nature conservation
naturecraft
natureculture
nature cure
natured
nature-deficit disorder
nature deficit disorder
nature deity
naturedly
nature faker
nature faking
nature-favored
nature film
nature folk
nature food
nature force
nature-friendly
nature god
goddess
nature grass
naturehood
nature-identical
nature kingdom
natureless
naturelike
nature lover
nature-lover
nature-mystic
nature mysticism
nature myth
nature-mythology
nature name
nature notes
nature of the beast
nature-painting
nature-people
nature philosophy
nature poem
nature poet
nature poetry
nature-positive
nature-power
nature preserve
nature printing
nature ramble
nature-religion
nature reserve
nature sanctuary
nature's candy
naturescape
nature spirit
nature's scythe
nature strip
nature student
nature study
nature symbol
nature symbolism
nature table
nature trail
nature-true
nature versus nurture
nature vs nurture
nature walk
nature worship
nature writer
nature writing
naturian
naturism
naturist
naturistic
naturity
naturize
naturogenic
naturopathic
nonnature
pay the debt of nature
permit nature to take her course
permit nature to take its course
preternature
relieve nature
renature
second nature
sport of nature
state of nature
supernature
supranature
the wolf may lose his teeth but never his nature
transnature
undernature
unnature
Translations: