Verb

To give something a shape and definition.

* 1932 , The American Scholar , page 227, United Chapters of Phi Beta Kappa

The professor never pretended to the academic prerogative of forcing his students into his own channels of reasoning; he entered into and helped shape the discussion but above all he made his men learn to think for themselves and rely upon their own intellectual judgments.

* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-08-03, volume=408, issue=8847, magazine=(The Economist)

, title= Revenge of the nerds , passage=Think of banking today and the image is of grey-suited men in towering skyscrapers. Its future, however, is being shaped in converted warehouses and funky offices in San Francisco, New York and London, where bright young things in jeans and T-shirts huddle around laptops, sipping lattes or munching on free food.}}

To form or manipulate something into a certain shape.

* Prior

Grace shaped her limbs, and beauty decked her face.

* {{quote-news, year=2010, date=December 29, author=Mark Vesty, work=BBC

, title= Wigan 2-2 Arsenal , passage=Bendtner's goal-bound shot was well saved by goalkeeper Ali Al Habsi but fell to Arsahvin on the edge of the area and the Russian swivelled, shaped his body and angled a sumptuous volley into the corner. }}

(of a country, person, etc) To give influence to.

To suit; to be adjusted or conformable.

(Shakespeare)

(obsolete) To imagine; to conceive.

* Shakespeare

Oft my jealousy / Shapes faults that are not.

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.