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Define vs Term - What's the difference?

define | term |

As nouns the difference between define and term

is that define is (computing|programming) a kind of macro in source code that replaces one text string with another wherever it occurs while term is term.

As a verb define

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

define

English

(Definition)

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.
  • Derived terms

    * definable * definer

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (computing, 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.

    Anagrams

    * ----

    term

    English

    (wikipedia term)

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • Limitation, restriction or regulation. (rfex)
  • Any of the binding conditions or promises in a legal contract.
  • That which limits the extent of anything; limit; extremity; bound; boundary.
  • * Francis Bacon
  • Corruption is a reciprocal to generation, and they two are as nature's two terms , or boundaries.
  • (geometry) A point, line, or superficies that limits.
  • A line is the term''' of a superficies, and a superficies is the '''term of a solid.
  • A word or phrase, especially one from a specialised area of knowledge.
  • "Algorithm" is a term used in computer science.
  • Relations among people.
  • * , chapter=22
  • , title= The Mirror and the Lamp , passage=Not unnaturally, “Auntie” took this communication in bad part.
  • Part of a year, especially one of the three parts of an academic year.
  • (mathematics) Any value (variable or constant) or expression separated from another term by a space or an appropriate character, in an overall expression or table.
  • (logic) The subject or the predicate of a proposition; one of the three component parts of a syllogism, each one of which is used twice.
  • * Sir W. Hamilton
  • The subject and predicate of a proposition are, after Aristotle, together called its terms or extremes.
  • (architecture) A quadrangular pillar, adorned on top with the figure of a head, as of a man, woman, or satyr.
  • Duration of a set length; period in office of fixed length.
  • (computing) A terminal emulator, a program that emulates a video terminal.
  • (of a patent) The maximum period during which the patent can be maintained into force.
  • (astrology) An essential dignity in which unequal segments of every astrological sign have internal rulerships which affect the power and integrity of each planet in a natal chart.
  • (archaic) A menstrual period.
  • * 1660 , (Samuel Pepys), Diary
  • My wife, after the absence of her terms for seven weeks, gave me hopes of her being with child, but on the last day of the year she hath them again.
  • (nautical) A piece of carved work placed under each end of the taffrail.
  • Derived terms

    {{der3, at term , blanket term , collective term , come to terms , long-term , midterm , short-term , term limit , term logic , term of art , terms and conditions , umbrella term}}

    See also

    * idiom * lexeme * listeme * word

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To phrase a certain way, especially with an unusual wording.
  • *
  • * {{quote-magazine, year=2013, month=September-October, author=(Henry Petroski)
  • , magazine=(American Scientist), title= The Evolution of Eyeglasses , passage=The ability of a segment of a glass sphere to magnify whatever is placed before it was known around the year 1000, when the spherical segment was called a reading stone, essentially what today we might term a frameless magnifying glass or plain glass paperweight.}}