define
Part of speech: verb
noun
Morphological type: simple
Topics: computing
engineering
mathematics
natural-sciences
physical-sciences
programming
sciences
Etymology: From Middle English definen, from Old French definer, variant of definir, from Latin dēfīniō (“limit, settle, define”), from dē + fīniō (“set a limit, bound, end”).
Inflected forms:
form: defines
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: defining
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: defined
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: defined
pos: verb
tags: past
form: defines
pos: noun
tags: plural
Senses:
gloss: To determine with precision; to mark out with distinctness; to ascertain or exhibit clearly.
pos: verb
examples: the defining power of an optical instrument
Rings[…]very distinct and well defined.
Turbines have been around for a long time—windmills and water wheels are early examples. The name comes from the Latin turbo, meaning vortex, and thus the defining property of a turbine is that a fluid or gas turns the blades of a rotor, which is attached to a shaft that can perform useful work.
gloss: To settle, decide (an argument etc.)
pos: verb
tags: obsolete
examples: These warlike Champions, all in armour shine, / Assembled were in field the chalenge to define.
gloss: To express the essential nature of something.
pos: verb
examples: I define myself as a techno-anarchist.
Your past mistakes do not define who you are.
Cantor defined a one-to-one correspondence between the points of the square and the points of the line segment. Every point in the square was associated with a single point in the segment; every point in the segment was matched with a unique point in the square.
gloss: To state the meaning of a word, phrase, sign, or symbol.
pos: verb
examples: The textbook defined speed as velocity divided by time.
gloss: To describe, explain, or make definite and clear; used to request the listener or other person to elaborate or explain more clearly his or her intended meaning of a word or expression.
pos: verb
examples: Person 1: Is she good at math?
Person 2: Define "good." If you mean if she is faster than the average middle schooler at multiplication, then yes. If you mean if she is able to do multivariable calculus, then no.
gloss: To demark sharply the outlines or limits of an area or concept.
pos: verb
examples: to define the legal boundaries of a property
Few concepts are as emotionally charged as that of race. The word conjures up a mixture of associations—culture, ethnicity, genetics, subjugation, exclusion and persecution. But is the tragic history of efforts to define groups of people by race really a matter of the misuse of science, the abuse of a valid biological concept?
gloss: To establish the referent of a term or notation.
pos: verb
gloss: A kind of macro in source code that replaces one text string with another wherever it occurs.
pos: noun
examples: From the computer programming perspective, Java looks like C and C++ while discarding the overwhelming complexities of those languages, such as typedefs, defines, preprocessor, unions, pointers, and multiple inheritance.
Anyone who has attempted to do OO programming in a conventional language using defines will find out that it is impossible to realize the benefits easily, if at all, without compiler support.
Related words: definiendum
definiens
definite
definition
definitory
Derived words: career-defining
codefine
definability
definable
definatory
defined benefit
defined benefits
defined contribution
defined contributions
definee
definement
definer
defining vocabulary
era-defining
misdefine
overdefine
predefine
pre-defined
redefine
semidefine
software defined radio
undefine
underdefine
user-defined function
user-defined graphic
Translations: