Verb

(defin)

To determine with precision; to mark out with distinctness; to ascertain or exhibit clearly.

* Sir (Isaac Newton)

Ringsvery distinct and well defined .

*{{quote-magazine, year=2013, month=July-August, author= Lee S. Langston

, title= The Adaptable Gas Turbine , passage=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.}}

(obsolete) To settle, decide (an argument etc.).

* 1596 , (Edmund Spenser), (The Faerie Queene) , IV.3:

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

To express the essential nature of something.

*{{quote-magazine, year=2013, month=May-June, author=

, volume=101, issue=3, page=178, magazine=(American Scientist) , title= Crinkly Curves , passage=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.}}

To state the meaning of a word, phrase, sign, or symbol.

To describe, explain, or make definite and clear.

To demark sharply the outlines or limits of an area or concept.

*{{quote-magazine, year=2012, month=March-April, author=(Jan Sapp)

, volume=100, issue=2, page=164, magazine=(American Scientist) , title= Race Finished , passage=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?}}

(mathematics) To establish the referent of a term or notation.

Verb

(en verb)

(obsolete) To remove the cover from; to uncover (a head, building etc.).

To expose, uncover.

:

(chess) To create by moving a piece out of another piece's line of attack.

:

(archaic) To reveal (information); to divulge, make known.

:

*Shakespeare

*:Go, draw aside the curtains, and discover / The several caskets to this noble prince.

*Francis Bacon

*:Prosperity doth best discover' vice; but adversity doth best ' discover virtue.

(obsolete) To reconnoitre, explore (an area).

*, Bk.V, ch.ix:

*:they seyde the same, and were aggreed that Sir Clegis, Sir Claryon, and Sir Clement the noble, that they sholde dyscover the woodys, bothe the dalys and the downys.

To find or learn something for the first time.

:

*{{quote-magazine, date=2013-08-10, volume=408, issue=8848, magazine=(The Economist)

, title= Can China clean up fast enough? , passage=All this has led to an explosion of protest across China, including among a middle class that has discovered nimbyism.}}

(obsolete) To manifest without design; to show; to exhibit.

*C. J. Smith

*:The youth discovered a taste for sculpture.

*1806 , Alexander Hunter, Culina Famulatrix Medicinæ , p.125:

*:The English Cooks keep all their Spices in separate boxes, but the French Cooks make a spicey mixture that does not discover a predominancy of any one of the spices over the others.