Noun

(en noun)

A written composition of moderate length exploring a particular issue or subject.

*{{quote-magazine, date=2013-01

, author=Katie L. Burke , title=Ecological Dependency , volume=101, issue=1, page=64 , magazine= citation , passage=In his first book since the 2008 essay collection Natural Acts: A Sidelong View of Science and Nature , David Quammen looks at the natural world from yet another angle: the search for the next human pandemic, what epidemiologists call “the next big one.”}}

(obsolete) A test, experiment; an assay.

An attempt.

* 1988 , James McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom , Oxford 2003, p. 455:

This was Lee's first essay in the kind of offensive-defensive strategy that was to become his hallmark.

Noun

(theses)

A statement supported by arguments.

A written essay, especially one submitted for a university degree.

* Goldsmith

I told them of the grave, becoming, and sublime deportment they should assume upon this mystical occasion, and read them two homilies and a thesis of my own composing, to prepare them.

(logic) An affirmation, or distinction from a supposition or hypothesis.

(music) The accented part of the measure, expressed by the downward beat; the opposite of arsis.

(poetry) The depression of the voice in pronouncing the syllables of a word.

(poetry) The part of the metrical foot upon which such a depression falls.