Noun

(en-noun)

An alphabetical listing of items and their location.

The index of a book lists words or expressions and the pages of the book upon which they are to be found.

The index finger; the forefinger.

A movable finger on a gauge, scale, etc.

(printing) A symbol resembling a pointing hand, used to direct particular attention to a note or paragraph.

That which points out; that which shows, indicates, manifests, or discloses.

* Arbuthnot

Tastes are the indexes of the different qualities of plants.

A sign; an indication; a token.

* Robert Louis Stevenson

His son's empty guffaws struck him with pain as the indices of a weak mind.

(linguistics) A type of noun where the meaning of the form changes with respect to the context. E.g., 'Today's newspaper' is an indexical form since its referent will differ depending on the context. See also icon and symbol.

(economics) A single number calculated from an array of prices or of quantities.

(science) A number representing a property or ratio, a coefficient.

(mathematics) A raised suffix indicating a power.

(programming, computing) An integer or other key indicating the location of data e.g. within an array, vector, database table, associative array, or hash table.

(computing, databases) A data structure that improves the performance of operations on a table.

(obsolete) A prologue indicating what follows.

(Shakespeare)

Noun

(en noun)

A butt or mark to shoot at, as for practice, or to test the accuracy of a firearm, or the force of a projectile.

A goal or objective.

* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-22, volume=407, issue=8841, page=70, magazine=(The Economist)

, title= Engineers of a different kind , passage=Private-equity nabobs bristle at being dubbed mere financiers.

A kind of small shield or buckler, used as a defensive weapon in war.

* 1598 , William Shakespeare, Henry IV , Part I, Act II, Scene IV, line 200,

These four came all afront, and mainly thrust at me. I made me no more ado but took all their seven points in my target , thus.

(obsolete) A shield resembling the Roman scutum. In modern usage, a smaller variety of shield is usually implied by this term.

* 1786 , Francis Grose, A Treatise on Ancient Armour and Weapons , page 22,

The target or buckler was carried by the heavy armed foot, it answered to the scutum of the Romans; its form was sometimes that of a rectangular parallelogram, but more commonly had its bottom rounded off; it was generally convex, being curved in its breadth.

(sports) The pattern or arrangement of a series of hits made by a marksman on a butt or mark.

(surveying) The sliding crosspiece, or vane, on a leveling staff.

(rail transport) A conspicuous disk attached to a switch lever to show its position, or for use as a signal.

(cricket) the number of runs that the side batting last needs to score in the final innings in order to win

(linguistics) The tenor of a metaphor.

(translation studies) The translated version of a document, or the language into which translation occurs.

A person (or group of people) that a person or organization is trying to employ or to have as a customer, audience etc.

* {{quote-news, year=2011, date=September 2, author=Phil McNulty, work=BBC

, title= Bulgaria 0-3 England , passage=Gary Cahill, a target for Arsenal and Tottenham before the transfer window closed, put England ahead early on and Rooney was on target twice before the interval as the early hostility of the Bulgarian supporters was swiftly subdued.}}