DEFINING • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Defining

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/dɪfˈaɪnɪŋ/ Listen

verb

Define v. t. (past & past part. defined; pres. part. defining)

To fix the bounds of; to bring to a termination; to end. "To define controversies."

To determine or clearly exhibit the boundaries of; to mark the limits of; as, to define the extent of a kingdom or country.

To determine with precision; to mark out with distinctness; to ascertain or exhibit clearly; as, the defining power of an optical instrument. "Rings... very distinct and well defined."

To determine the precise signification of; to fix the meaning of; to describe accurately; to explain; to expound or interpret; as, to define a word, a phrase, or a scientific term. "They define virtue to be life ordered according to nature."

Define v. i. To determine; to decide. (Obs.)

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Etymology of 'Defining'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Defining" Quotes from Famous Books

... the Nanking Provisional Constitution until a permanent instrument was drawn up, the Kuo Ming Tang rapidly established an ascendancy; for although the Nanking Constitution had admittedly failed to bring representative government because of the difficulty of defining powers in such a way as to make a practical autocracy impossible, it had at least established as a basic principle that China could no longer be ruled as a family possession, which in itself marked a great advance on all previous conceptions. President Li Yuan-hung's policy, in the ...

— The Fight For The Republic in China • Bertram Lenox Putnam Weale

... no part of the Murchison policy to draw against future balances: they might believe everything, they would express nothing; and I doubt whether Lorne himself had any map of the country he meant to travel over in that vague future, already defining in local approbation, and law business coming freely in with a special eye on the junior partner. But the tract was there, subconscious, plain in the wider glance, the alerter manner; plain even in the grasp and ...

— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan

... without indemnity for the past, but a British right of search and impressment was implicitly recognized, the French West Indian trade not rendered secure, and arbitrary liberty accorded to Great Britain in defining contraband. Opposition to ratification was bitter and nearly universal. The friends of France were jubilant. Jay was burned in effigy, Washington himself attacked. The utmost that Hamilton in his powerful "Letters of Camillus" could show was that the treaty seemed ...

— History of the United States, Volume 2 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews

... the adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment, by which slavery was forever abolished and black men transformed from property to persons, the judicial opinions of the country had always been in harmony with this definition: In order to be a citizen one must be a voter. Associate-Justice Washington, in defining the privileges and immunities of the citizen, more than fifty years ago, said: "They include all such privileges as are fundamental in their nature; and among them is the right to exercise the elective franchise, ...

— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper

... regarded them as an unnecessary interference of Parliament with the authority of the Sovereign in his Council. The Sovereign might undoubtedly have created a Committee of the judicial members of the Privy Council: but the Bill went further, and by extending and defining the power of the Judicial Committee as a Court of Appeal it undoubtedly proved a very useful ...

— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville

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