English

Verb

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.]
   • 1596, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, IV.3:

     These warlike Champions, all in armour shine, / Assembled were in field the chalenge to define.

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

• definable
• definer

Related terms

• definiendum
• definiens
• definition
• definitory

Translations

Noun

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

External links

• define in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913
• define in The Century Dictionary, The Century Co., New York, 1911

Anagrams

• infeed

Galician

Verb

define

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

Portuguese

Verb

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

Verb

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.