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information

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
See also: Information

English

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Etymology

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From Middle English enformacioun, informacioun, borrowed from Anglo-Norman informacioun, enformation, Old French information, from Latin īnfōrmātiō (“formation, conception; education”), from the participle stem of īnformāre (“to inform”). Equivalent to inform +‎ -ation.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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information (usually uncountable, plural informations)

  1. Something that provides a definitive characterization or description of the nature and attributes of a specified entity.
    • 2018, Steven Pinker, “Chapter 2: Entro, Evo, Info”, in Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress, Penguin, →ISBN:
      And now we come to the third keystone, information.⁸ Information may be thought of as a reduction in entropy—as the ingredient that distinguishes an orderly, structured system from the vast set of random, useless ones.⁹ Imagine pages of random characters tapped out by a monkey at a typewriter, or a stretch of white noise from a radio tuned between channels, or a screenful of confetti from a corrupted computer file. Each of these objects can take trillions of different forms, each as boring as the next. But now suppose that the devices are controlled by a signal that arranges the characters or sound waves or pixels into a pattern that correlates with something in the world: the Declaration of Independence, the opening bars of “Hey Jude,” a cat wearing sunglasses. We say that the signal transmits information about the Declaration or the song or the cat.¹⁰
  2. Things that are or can be known about a given topic; communicable knowledge of something. [from 14th c.]
    I need some more information about this issue.
    • 1592, Henry IV of France, A Discourse of the Great Overthrow‎[2], page 2:
      And ſo much yet did this contagion breake foorth to the harme of manie Inhabitants of his Towne, who affected the Vicont, that they which were encountred by the kinges troupes, (information being geuen of their demeanor) they were iudged to be of good prize, and voluntarely paid ranſom.
  3. The act of informing or imparting knowledge; notification. [from 14th c.]
    For your information, I did this because I wanted to.
    • 1903–1909, “Extracto de una carta (Extract of a letter from the Indies)”, in Emma Helen Blair, James Alexander Robertson, editors, The Philippine Islands, 1493–1898‎[3], volume 1, pages 297-299:
      At this time a great uneasiness became manifest among the Castilians, and it was rumored that Magallanes was going to deliver them over to the Portuguese; and they resolved to mutiny and seize the ships. Magallanes upon obtaining information of this was sorely grieved. He summoned the guilty ones before him one by one, but they flatly refused to come.
  4. (law, countable) A statement of criminal activity brought before a judge or magistrate; in the UK, used to inform a magistrate of an offence and request a warrant; in the US, an accusation brought before a judge without a grand jury indictment. [from 15th c.]
    • 1968, Carl B. Cone, The English Jacobins, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, page 131:
      On May 21, 1792, the Attorney General filed an information against Paine charging him with seditious libel.
  5. (obsolete) The act of informing against someone, passing on incriminating knowledge; accusation. [14th–17th c.]
  6. (now rare) The systematic imparting of knowledge; education, training. [from 14th c.]
  7. (now rare) The creation of form; the imparting of a given quality or characteristic; forming, animation. [from 17th c.]
  8. (computing, formally) The meaning that a human assigns to data by means of the known conventions used in its representation.
  9. (Christianity) Divine inspiration. [from 15th c.]
  10. A service provided by telephone which provides listed telephone numbers of a subscriber. [from 20th c.]
  12. (information theory) Any unambiguous abstract data, the smallest possible unit being the bit. [from 20th c.]
  13. (computing, data management) The output resulting from the systematic collection, manipulation and organization of raw data into a structured, interpretable format. [from late 20th c.]
  14. (information technology) Any ordered sequence of symbols (or signals) (that could contain a message). [from late 20th c.]

Usage notes

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  • The definition of information in the computing context is from an international standard vocabulary which, though formally accepted, is largely ignored by the computing profession.[1]

Hyponyms

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Derived terms

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English terms starting with “information”

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Compound words and expressions

Translations

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See also

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References

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  1. ^ W. N. Holmes (2001-05), “The Great Term Robbery”, in Computer‎[1], volume 34, number 5, →DOI, →ISSN, pages 94–96

Further reading

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Danish

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Danish Wikipedia has an article on:
Wikipedia da

Etymology

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Borrowed from Latin informatiō, informatiōnis.

Noun

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information c (singular definite informationen, plural indefinite informationer)

  1. (a piece of) information

Inflection

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Declension of information
common
gender 		singular plural
indefinite definite indefinite definite
nominative information informationen informationer informationerne
genitive informations informationens informationers informationernes

Derived terms

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French

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Etymology

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Inherited from Old French, borrowed from Latin īnfōrmātiōnem.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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information f (plural informations)

  1. (countable) piece of information; datum
    Cette information nous est parvenue hier soir.
    This piece of information reached us last night.
  2. (plural only) news
    Tous les jours, il regarde la télé le midi pour suivre les informations.
    Every day, he watches TV at noon to catch the news.
  3. (uncountable) information
    Théorie de l'information.
    Theory of information

Synonyms

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Derived terms

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Further reading

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Middle English

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Noun

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information

  1. alternative form of enformacioun

Swedish

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Etymology

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Borrowed from Latin informatiō, informatiōnis.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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information c

  1. information

Declension

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Declension of information
nominative genitive
singular indefinite information informations
definite informationen informationens
plural indefinite informationer informationers
definite informationerna informationernas
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References

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