define

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English[edit]

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Etymology[edit]

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”)

Pronunciation[edit]

Verb[edit]

define ‎(third-person singular simple present defines, present participle defining, simple past and past participle defined)

  1. To determine with precision; to mark out with distinctness; to ascertain or exhibit clearly.
    • Sir Isaac Newton
      Rings […] very distinct and well defined.
    • 2013 July-August, Lee S. Langston, “The Adaptable Gas Turbine”, in (Please provide the title of the work):
      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.
    the defining power of an optical instrument‎
  2. (obsolete) To settle, decide (an argument etc.). [16th-17th c.]
  3. To express the essential nature of something.
    • 2013 May-June, Brian Hayes, “Crinkly Curves”, in American Scientist, volume 101, number 3, page 178:
      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.
    I define myself as a techno-anarchist.‎
  4. To state the meaning of a word, phrase, sign, or symbol.
    The textbook defined speed as velocity divided by time.‎
  5. To describe, explain, or make definite and clear.
  6. To demark sharply the outlines or limits of an area or concept.
    • 2012 March-April, Jan Sapp, “Race Finished”, in American Scientist, volume 100, number 2, page 164:
      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?
    to define the legal boundaries of a property‎
  7. (mathematics) To establish the referent of a term or notation.

Derived terms[edit]

Related terms[edit]

Translations[edit]

Noun[edit]

define ‎(plural defines)

  1. (programming) A kind of macro in source code that replaces one text string with another wherever it occurs.
    • 1996, James Gosling, Henry McGilton, The Java Language Environment
      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.
    • 1999, Ian Joyner, Objects unencapsulated: Java, Eiffel, and C++ (page 309)
      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.

Translations[edit]

macro that replaces one text string with another

External links[edit]

Anagrams[edit]

Galician[edit]

Verb[edit]

define

  1. third-person singular present indicative of definir
  2. second-person singular imperative of definir

Portuguese[edit]

Verb[edit]

define

  1. Second-person singular (tu) affirmative imperative of definir
  2. Third-person singular (ele, ela, also used with tu and você?) present indicative of definir

Spanish[edit]

Verb[edit]

define

  1. Third-person singular (él, ella, also used with usted?) present indicative form of definir.
  2. Informal second-person singular (tú) affirmative imperative form of definir.
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