Definition Of Matrilineal Society

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  definition of matrilineal society: Matrilineal Kinship David Murray Schneider, 1974
  definition of matrilineal society: Matriarchal Societies Heide Göttner-Abendroth, 2013-09-30 This book presents the results of Heide Goettner-Abendroth's pioneering research in the field of modern matriarchal studies, based on a new definition of «matriarchy» as true gender-egalitarian societies. This new perspective on matriarchal societies is developed step by step by the analysis of extant indigenous cultures in Asia, Africa, and the Americas.
  definition of matrilineal society: Women at the Center Peggy Reeves Sanday, 2002 Contrary to the declarations of some anthropologists, matriarchies do exist. Peggy Reeves Sanday first went to West Sumatra in 1981, intrigued by reports that the matrilineal Minangkabau--one of the largest ethnic groups in Indonesia--label their society a matriarchy. Numbering some four million in West Sumatra, the Minangkabau are known in Indonesia for their literary flair, business acumen, and egalitarian, democratic relationships between men and women. Sanday uses her repeated visits to West Sumatra in the closing decades of the twentieth century as the basis for a new definition of matriarchy. From the vantage point of daily life in villages, especially one where she developed close personal ties, Sanday's narrative is centered on how the Minangkabau conceive of their world and think humans should behave, along with the practices and rituals they claim uphold their matriarchate. Women at the Center leaves the reader with a solid sense of the respect for women that permeates Minangkabau culture, and gives new life to the concept of matriarchy.
  definition of matrilineal society: Leaving Mother Lake Yang Erche Namu, Christine Mathieu, 2007-09-03 The haunting memoir of a girl growing up in the Moso country in the Himalayas -- a unique matrilineal society. But even in this land of women, familial tension is eternal. Namu is a strong-willed daughter, and conflicts between her and her rebellious mother lead her to break the taboo that holds the Moso world together -- she leaves her mother's house.
  definition of matrilineal society: The Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory Cynthia Eller, 2001-04-13 According to the myth of matriarchal prehistory, men and women lived together peacefully before recorded history. Society was centered around women, with their mysterious life-giving powers, and they were honored as incarnations and priestesses of the Great Goddess. Then a transformation occurred, and men thereafter dominated society. Given the universality of patriarchy in recorded history, this vision is understandably appealing for many women. But does it have any basis in fact? And as a myth, does it work for the good of women? Cynthia Eller traces the emergence of the feminist matriarchal myth, explicates its functions, and examines the evidence for and against a matriarchal prehistory. Finally, she explains why this vision of peaceful, woman-centered prehistory is something feminists should be wary of.
  definition of matrilineal society: The History and Culture of the Khasi People Hamlet Bareh, 1985
  definition of matrilineal society: Introduction to Sociology 2e Nathan J. Keirns, Heather Griffiths, Eric Strayer, Susan Cody-Rydzewski, Gail Scaramuzzo, Sally Vyain, Tommy Sadler, Jeff D. Bry, Faye Jones, 2015-03-17 This text is intended for a one-semester introductory course.--Page 1.
  definition of matrilineal society: Ancient Society Lewis Henry Morgan, 1909
  definition of matrilineal society: Gendered Lives Nadine T. Fernandez, Katie Nelson, 2022-01-01 Gendered Lives takes a regional approach to examine gender issues from an anthropological perspective with a focus on globalization and intersectionality. Chapters present contributors' ethnographic research, contextualizing their findings within four geographic regions: Latin America, the Caribbean, South Asia, and the Global North. Each regional section begins with an overview of the broader historical, social, and gendered contexts, which situate the regions within larger global linkages. These introductions also feature short project/people profiles that highlight the work of community leaders or non-governmental organizations active in gender-related issues. Each research-based chapter begins with a chapter overview and learning objectives and closes with discussion questions and resources for further exploration. This modular, regional approach allows instructors to select the regions and cases they want to use in their courses. While they can be used separately, the chapters are connected through the book's central themes of globalization and intersectionality. An OER version of this course is freely available thanks to the generous support of SUNY OER Services. Access the book online at https://milneopentextbooks.org/gendered-lives-global-issues/.
  definition of matrilineal society: The Kingdom of Women Choo WaiHong, 2020-05-05 In a mist-shrouded valley on China's invisible border with Tibet is a place known as the Kingdom of Women, where a small tribe called the Mosuo lives in a cluster of villages that have changed little in centuries. In a mist-shrouded valley on China's invisible border with Tibet is a place known as the Kingdom of Women, where a small tribe called the Mosuo lives in a cluster of villages that have changed little in centuries. This is one of the last matrilineal societies on earth, where power lies in the hands of women. All decisions and rights related to money, property, land and the children born to them rest with the Mosuo women, who live completely independently of husbands, fathers and brothers, with the grandmother as the head of each family. A unique practice is also enshrined in Mosuo tradition--that of walking marriage, where women choose their own lovers from men within the tribe but are beholden to none.
  definition of matrilineal society: A Society Without Fathers Or Husbands Cai Hua, 2001-01-05 A fascinating account of the Na society, which functions without the institution of marriage. The Na of China, farmers in the Himalayan region, live without the institution of marriage. Na brothers and sisters live together their entire lives, sharing household responsibilities and raising the women's children. Because the Na, like all cultures, prohibit incest, they practice a system of sometimes furtive, sometimes conspicuous nighttime encounters at the woman's home. The woman's partners--she frequently has more than one--bear no economic responsibility for her or her children, and fathers, unless they resemble their children, remain unidentifiable. This lucid ethnographic study shows how a society can function without husbands or fathers. It sheds light on marriage and kinship, as well as on the position of women, the necessary conditions for the acquisition of identity, and the impact of a communist state on a society that it considers backward.
  definition of matrilineal society: Early Human Kinship Nicholas J. Allen, Hilary Callan, Robin Dunbar, Wendy James, 2011-01-04 Early Human Kinship brings together original studies from leading figures in the biological sciences, social anthropology, archaeology, and linguistics to provide a major breakthrough in the debate over human evolution and the nature of society. A major new collaboration between specialists across the range of the human sciences including evolutionary biology and psychology; social/cultural anthropology; archaeology and linguistics Provides a ground-breaking set of original studies offering a new perspective on early human history Debates fundamental questions about early human society: Was there a connection between the beginnings of language and the beginnings of organized 'kinship and marriage'? How far did evolutionary selection favor gender and generation as principles for regulating social relations? Sponsored by the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland in conjunction with the British Academy
  definition of matrilineal society: Social Dynamics of Adolescent Fertility in Sub-Saharan Africa National Research Council, Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education, Commission on Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education, Working Group on the Social Dynamics of Adolescent Fertility, 1993-02-01 This examination of changes in adolescent fertility emphasizes the changing social context within which adolescent childbearing takes place.
  definition of matrilineal society: Strong Mothers, Weak Wives Miriam M. Johnson, 1988 For years I have been impressed by the originality and insight of Johnson's articles on gender, sexuality, and male dominance. This book continues and expands the excellent quality of the earlier work. . . [It] provides an original argument about the central structural locus of gender inequality, and makes a major advance in its insightful and insistent focus on the role of the father in gender differentiation and sexual dominance. . . . It will surely be recognized as a major work of feminist theory.—Nancy Chodorow, author of The Reproduction of Mothering This thoughtful and provocative book greatly deepens the debate over the effects of mothers and fathers on their children.—Arlie Hochschild, author of The Second Shift: Inside the Two-Job Marriage
  definition of matrilineal society: Caste Isabel Wilkerson, 2023-02-14 #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB PICK • “An instant American classic and almost certainly the keynote nonfiction book of the American century thus far.”—Dwight Garner, The New York Times The Pulitzer Prize–winning, bestselling author of The Warmth of Other Suns examines the unspoken caste system that has shaped America and shows how our lives today are still defined by a hierarchy of human divisions—now with a new Afterword by the author. #1 NONFICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR: Time ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Washington Post, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, O: The Oprah Magazine, NPR, Bloomberg, The Christian Science Monitor, New York Post, The New York Public Library, Fortune, Smithsonian Magazine, Marie Claire, Slate, Library Journal, Kirkus Reviews Winner of the Carl Sandberg Literary Award • Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize • National Book Award Longlist • National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist • Dayton Literary Peace Prize Finalist • PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction Finalist • PEN/Jean Stein Book Award Longlist • Kirkus Prize Finalist “As we go about our daily lives, caste is the wordless usher in a darkened theater, flashlight cast down in the aisles, guiding us to our assigned seats for a performance. The hierarchy of caste is not about feelings or morality. It is about power—which groups have it and which do not.” In this brilliant book, Isabel Wilkerson gives us a masterful portrait of an unseen phenomenon in America as she explores, through an immersive, deeply researched, and beautifully written narrative and stories about real people, how America today and throughout its history has been shaped by a hidden caste system, a rigid hierarchy of human rankings. Beyond race, class, or other factors, there is a powerful caste system that influences people’s lives and behavior and the nation’s fate. Linking the caste systems of America, India, and Nazi Germany, Wilkerson explores eight pillars that underlie caste systems across civilizations, including divine will, bloodlines, stigma, and more. Using riveting stories about people—including Martin Luther King, Jr., baseball’s Satchel Paige, a single father and his toddler son, Wilkerson herself, and many others—she shows the ways that the insidious undertow of caste is experienced every day. She documents how the Nazis studied the racial systems in America to plan their outcasting of the Jews; she discusses why the cruel logic of caste requires that there be a bottom rung for those in the middle to measure themselves against; she writes about the surprising health costs of caste, in depression and life expectancy, and the effects of this hierarchy on our culture and politics. Finally, she points forward to ways America can move beyond the artificial and destructive separations of human divisions, toward hope in our common humanity. Original and revealing, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents is an eye-opening story of people and history, and a reexamination of what lies under the surface of ordinary lives and of American life today.
  definition of matrilineal society: The Elementary Structures of Kinship Claude Levi-Strauss, 1971-06-30 Professor Lévi-Strauss’s first major work, Les Structures élémentaires de la Parenté, has acquired a classic reputation since its original publication in 1949; and it has become the constant focus of academic debate about central theoretical concerns in social anthropology. It is, however, a long and difficult book for many students to read in French, and its arguments have consequently become known, even among professional anthropologists, largely through critical analysis. It was republished in a revised French edition in 1967 with a new foreword by the author, and it is this text with his further emendations that has been used in this translation. Lévi-Strauss applies his intellectual powers to the perennial problem of incest, which he elucidates by means of the concept of exchange as formulated by Marcel Mauss in his famous analysis of the gift (Essai sur le don, 1925). He distinguishes two elementary modes of exchange which govern not only the conventional variety of goods and services but also the transfer of women in marriage: these are “restricted” and “generalized” exchange. With a mass of ethnographic evidence he demonstrates how the formidable intricacy of marriage customs, comprising moral and jural ideas and institutions (which appear to be essentially arbitrary), can be seen as local and historical rules of exchange. Charles Lévi-Strauss traces these rules throughout a vast range of simple societies, chiefly in Australia and mainland Southeast Asia but also in the Americas, in Oceania, and in other parts of the world. To this survey he adds two extended sections on the great civilizations of China and India. He continues with a briefer consideration of the passage from elementary to complex structures, with particular reference to African societies, and concludes with a stimulating chapter on the principles of kinship, exchange as the universal basis for marriage prohibitions, and the formal relations between the sexes as part of a universe of communication. Although much of the work is technical, consisting of detailed analyses of types of social organization with which social anthropologists will be most familiar, it also contains much that will be of interest to psychologists, linguists, and philosophers, and to all who are interested in the possibility and the technique of the structural analysis of human activity. After the successes, moreover, of Lévi-Strauss’s subsequent books—notably Structural Anthropology, Tristes Tropiques, Totemism, and The Savage Mind—this new edition of the work which founded his present outstanding reputation will have additional value as a further means of contact with one of the original minds of this century. The translation has been made by James Harle Bell and John Richard von Sturmer, of the University of New England, Australia, and by Rodney Needham, of the University of Oxford. Dr. Needham also acted as general editor and supplied the work with a new general index. He is the translator of Lévi-Strauss’s Le Totemisme aujourd’hui and author of Structure and Sentiment (1962) and numerous papers which have contributed to the recognition of Professor Lévi-Strauss’s work in the English-speaking world.
  definition of matrilineal society: African Traditional Religion E. Bọlaji Idowu, 1973
  definition of matrilineal society: The Patriarchal Theory John Ferguson McLennan, 1885
  definition of matrilineal society: Defining Females Shirley Ardener, 2020-12-22 Second, Revised EditionTo what are we referring when we speak of women? What is the nature of women in society; what is the nature of women in society? These are the central questions of this classic text which looks at areas ranging from England and Greece to Mongolia and Africa. The authors - anthropologists, sociologists, ethnologists, neurologists and psychologists - consider the structural position of women; how they are defined by reference to physiological and social markers, and how they are required to behave. They also consider ways in which different cultures identify and deal with such `natural' aspects of women as virginity, sexuality and childbearing. The broad variety of geographical perspectives reveals dissimilar as well as similar ideas about women - in their use of language and of space, matrifocality, and life trajectories.
  definition of matrilineal society: The Goddess and Her Heros Heide Göttner-Abendroth, 1995-01-01
  definition of matrilineal society: The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State Friedrich Engels, 1902
  definition of matrilineal society: Culture, Creation, and Procreation Monika Böck, Aparna Rao, 2000 These 12 chapters discuss the constitution of kinship among different communities in South Asia and addressing the relationship between ideology and practice, cultural models, and individual strategies. Chapters center around three topics: community and person, gender and change, and shared knowledge and practice. The volume as a whole contributes to the on-going debate on models of well-being within kinship studies. Contributors include anthropologists from Europe, Asia, and the United States. Annotation copyrighted by Book News Inc., Portland, OR
  definition of matrilineal society: The Complex Alternative David C. Krakauer, Geoffrey B. West, 2021-11
  definition of matrilineal society: Feminism and Religion Rita M. Gross, 1996 Rita M. Gross offers an engaging survey of the changes feminism has wrought in religious ideas, beliefs, and practices around the world, as well as in the study and understanding of religion itself. This book will be an important resource for all ongoing work in feminist teaching and research in religion.-Rosemary Radford Ruether
  definition of matrilineal society: Beyond Kinship Rosemary A. Joyce, Susan D. Gillespie, 2000-05-08 Beyond Kinship brings together ethnohistorians, archaeologists, and cultural anthropologists for the first time in a common discussion of the social model of house societies proposed by Claude Levi-Strauss. While kinship theory has been central to the study of social organization, an alternative approach has emerged—that of seeing the house both as a physical and symbolic structure and a principle of social organization. The house stands as a model social formation that is distinguished by its attention to a number of material domains (land, the dwelling, ritual and nonritual objects). As the essays in this volume make clear, the focus on material culture and on place contributes to the ongoing convergence of anthropology and history and helps erase the artificial distinctions between prehistory and history. Contributions to the volume offer significant new interpretations of primary data as well as reconsidering classic ethnographic material. Beyond Kinship crosses the boundaries within anthropology—not only between cultural anthropology and archaeology but between structural—symbolic and materialist approaches and between American and British schools of anthropology; it is intended to advance the fruitful dialogue now taking place within the field.
  definition of matrilineal society: The Tribal Culture of India Lalita Prasad Vidyarthi, Binay Kumar Rai, 1977
  definition of matrilineal society: Precolonial Black Africa Cheikh Anta Diop, Harold Salemson, 2012-09-01 This comparison of the political and social systems of Europe and black Africa from antiquity to the formation of modern states demonstrates the black contribution to the development of Western civilization.
  definition of matrilineal society: Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family Lewis Henry Morgan, 2018-10-14 This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
  definition of matrilineal society: Emile Durkheim on the Family Mary Ann Lamanna, 2001-10-24 This book looks at this classical sociologist's work on the family. Durkheim's writings in this area are little known, but the family was nevertheless one of his primary interests. It brings together Durkheim's ideas on the family from diverse sources and presents his family and sociology systematically and comprehensively. Chapter topics include: * Durkheim's life and times * his evolutionary theory of the family * methodologies for studying the family * the changing relationship of kin * conjugal family and the state * the interior of the family * family policy * gender * sexuality His work is situated in it's historical context and comparisons are drawn to present-day sociology of the family and family issues.
  definition of matrilineal society: The Trobrianders of Papua New Guinea Annette B. Weiner, 1988 Book about the social life and customs of the Trobriand Islanders of Papua New Guinea
  definition of matrilineal society: The Hyena & Other Men Pieter Hugo, 2007 Many myths surround the Hyena Men who haunt the peripheries of Nigeria's cities. Accompanied by hyenas, rock pythons and baboons, these men earn a living by performing before crowds and selling traditional medicines. Pieter Hugo's extraordinary portraits of their liminal existence reveal an uncanny world of complex, codependent relationships, where familiar distinctions between dominance and submission, wildness and domesticity, tradition and modernity are constantly subverted.
  definition of matrilineal society: African Gender Studies Oyeronke Oyewumi, 2016-09-27 This is the first comprehensive reader that brings African experiences to bear on the ongoing global discussions of women, gender, and society. Bringing together the essential writing on this topic from the last 25 years, these essays discuss gender in Africa from a multi-disciplinary perspective.
  definition of matrilineal society: Encyclopedia of Motherhood Andrea O'Reilly, 2010-04-06 In the last decade, the topic of motherhood has emerged as a distinct and established field of scholarly inquiry. A cursory review of motherhood research reveals that hundreds of scholarly articles have been published on almost every motherhood theme imaginable. The Encyclopedia of Motherhood is a collection of approximately 700 articles in a three-volume, A-to-Z set exploring major topics related to motherhood, from geographical, historical and cultural entries to anthropological and psychological contributions. In human society, few institutions are as important as motherhood, and this unique encyclopedia captures the interdisciplinary foundation of the subject in one convenient reference. The Encyclopedia is a comprehensive resource designed to provide an understanding of the complexities of motherhood for academic and public libraries, and is written by academics and institutional experts in the social and behavioural sciences.
  definition of matrilineal society: The Anthropology of Slavery Claude Meillassoux, 1991 This controversial examination of precolonial African slavery looks at the various social systems that made slavery on such a scale possible and argues that the institutions of slavery were far more complex and pervasive than previously suspected.
  definition of matrilineal society: Matrilineal, Matriarchal, and Matrifocal Islam Abbas Panakkal,
  definition of matrilineal society: A Divided Forest Doris Chapin Bailey, 2008 This is the story of Roy Bailey, Tlingit, cultural and family loss, discrimination, change, and growing up in Sitka, and Juneau, Alaska, in the first half of the 20th century.
  definition of matrilineal society: Seven Daughters of Eve Bryan Sykes, 2002-05-17 This national bestseller, now in paperback, reveals how all humans are descended from seven prehistoric women--the Seven Daughters of Eve.
  definition of matrilineal society: The Cultural Analysis of Kinship Richard Feinberg, Martin Ottenheimer, 2001 In the mid-1970s, David M. Schneider rocked the anthropological world with his announcement that kinship did not exist in any culture known to humankind. This volume provides a critical assessment of Schneider's ideas, focusing particularly on his contributions to kinship studies and the implications of his work for cultural relativism. Schneider's deconstruction of kinship as a cultural system sounded the death knell for a certain kind of kinship study. At the same time, it laid the groundwork for the re-emergence of kinship studies as a centerpiece of anthropological theory and practice. Now a mainstay of cultural studies, Schneider's conception of cultural relativism revolutionized thinking about kinship, family, gender, and culture. For feminist anthropologists, his ideas freed kinship from the limitations of biology, providing a context for establishing gender as a cultural construct. Today, his work bears on high-profile issues such as gay and lesbian partners and parents, surrogate motherhood, and new reproductive technologies. Contributors to The Cultural Analysis of Kinship appraise Schneider's contributions and his place in anthropological history, particularly in the development of anthropological theory. Situating Schneider's work and influence in relation to major controversies in the history of anthropology and of kinship studies, they examine his important insights and their limitations, consider where his approach might lead, and offer alternative paradigms. Inspiring many with his keenly critical mind and willingness to flout convention, discomfiting others with his mercurial temperament, David Schneider left an ineradicable mark on his field. These frank observations on the man and his ideas offer a revealing glimpse of one of modern anthropology's most complex and paradoxical figures.
  definition of matrilineal society: Re-Inventing Africa Ifi Amadiume, 1997-12 This book reveals how conventional anthropology has consistently imposed European ideas of the natural nuclear family, women as passive object, and class differences on a continent with a long history of women with power doing things differently. Amadiume argues for an end to anthropology and calls instead for a social history of Africa, by Africans.
  definition of matrilineal society: Comparative Studies in Kinship Jack Goody, 2013-11-05 Against the background of the problems involved in the comparative study of human society, the essays in this book show the comparative ideal in practice, which combines elements from both sociology and anthropology. In each essay, specific problems are treated in a way which tests theory against evidence, to replace assertion by demonstration. Topics covered include: · Incest and Adultery · Double descent systems · Inheritance, social change and the boundary problem · Marriage policy · The circulation of women and children in northern Ghana · Indo-European kinship. First published in 1969.
DEFINITION Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster
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Definition definition: the act of defining, or of making something definite, distinct, or clear.. See examples of DEFINITION used in a sentence.

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DEFINITION definition: 1. a statement that explains the meaning of a word or phrase: 2. a description of the features and…. Learn more.

DEFINITION definition and meaning | Collins English Dictionary
A definition is a statement giving the meaning of a word or expression, especially in a dictionary.

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Definition of definition noun in Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary. Meaning, pronunciation, picture, example sentences, grammar, usage notes, synonyms and more.

Definition - Wikipedia
A nominal definition is the definition explaining what a word means (i.e., which says what the "nominal essence" is), and is definition in the classical sense as given above. A real definition, by …

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Here is one definition from a popular dictionary: 'Any instrument or organization by which power is applied and made effective, or a desired effect produced.' Well, then, is not a man a machine?

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Jun 8, 2025 · definition (countable and uncountable, plural definitions) ( semantics , lexicography ) A statement of the meaning of a word , word group, sign , or symbol ; especially, a dictionary …

Definition Definition & Meaning | Britannica Dictionary
DEFINITION meaning: 1 : an explanation of the meaning of a word, phrase, etc. a statement that defines a word, phrase, etc.; 2 : a statement that describes what something is

Dictionary.com | Meanings & Definitions of English Words
3 days ago · The world's leading online dictionary: English definitions, synonyms, word origins, example sentences, word games, and more. A trusted authority for 25+ years!

DEFINITION Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster
The meaning of DEFINITION is a statement of the meaning of a word or word group or a sign or symbol. How to use definition in a sentence.

DEFINITION Definition & Meaning - Dictionary.com
Definition definition: the act of defining, or of making something definite, distinct, or clear.. See examples of DEFINITION used in a sentence.

DEFINITION | English meaning - Cambridge Dictionary
DEFINITION definition: 1. a statement that explains the meaning of a word or phrase: 2. a description of the features and…. Learn more.

DEFINITION definition and meaning | Collins English Dictionary
A definition is a statement giving the meaning of a word or expression, especially in a dictionary.

definition noun - Definition, pictures, pronunciation and usage …
Definition of definition noun in Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary. Meaning, pronunciation, picture, example sentences, grammar, usage notes, synonyms and more.

Definition - Wikipedia
A nominal definition is the definition explaining what a word means (i.e., which says what the "nominal essence" is), and is definition in the classical sense as given above. A real definition, …

Definition - definition of definition by The Free Dictionary
Here is one definition from a popular dictionary: 'Any instrument or organization by which power is applied and made effective, or a desired effect produced.' Well, then, is not a man a machine?

definition - Wiktionary, the free dictionary
Jun 8, 2025 · definition (countable and uncountable, plural definitions) ( semantics , lexicography ) A statement of the meaning of a word , word group, sign , or symbol ; especially, a dictionary …

Definition Definition & Meaning | Britannica Dictionary
DEFINITION meaning: 1 : an explanation of the meaning of a word, phrase, etc. a statement that defines a word, phrase, etc.; 2 : a statement that describes what something is

Dictionary.com | Meanings & Definitions of English Words
3 days ago · The world's leading online dictionary: English definitions, synonyms, word origins, example sentences, word games, and more. A trusted authority for 25+ years!