Noun

(en noun)

Physical matter; material.

* 1699 , , Heads designed for an essay on conversations

Study gives strength to the mind; conversation, grace: the first apt to give stiffness, the other suppleness: one gives substance and form to the statue, the other polishes it.

* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-07-20, volume=408, issue=8845, magazine=(The Economist)

, title= Welcome to the plastisphere , passage=Plastics are energy-rich substances , which is why many of them burn so readily. Any organism that could unlock and use that energy would do well in the Anthropocene. Terrestrial bacteria and fungi which can manage this trick are already familiar to experts in the field.}}

The essential part of anything; the most vital part.

* (John Dryden) (1631-1700)

Heroic virtue did his actions guide, / And he the substance , not the appearance, chose.

* Bishop Burnet

This edition is the same in substance with the Latin.

* (Edmund Burke) (1729-1797)

It is insolent in words, in manner; but in substance it is not only insulting, but alarming.

Substantiality; solidity; firmness.

Material possessions; estate; property; resources.

* Bible, (w) xv. 13

And there wasted his substance with riotous living.

* (William Shakespeare) (1564-1616)

Thy substance , valued at the highest rate, / Cannot amount unto a hundred marks.

* (Jonathan Swift) (1667–1745)

We are destroying many thousand lives, and exhausting our substance , but not for our own interest.

Drugs (illegal narcotics)

(theology) Hypostasis.

Noun

(en-noun)

The womb.

* 1646 , Sir Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica , III.17:

upon conception the inward orifice of the matrix exactly closeth, so that it commonly admitteth nothing after [...].

* 1969 , Vladimir Nabokov, Ada or Ardor , Penguin 2011, p. 296:

In very rare cases, when the matrix just goes on pegging away automatically, the doctor can take advantage of that and ease out the second brat who then can be considered to be, say, three minutes younger [...].

(biology) The material or tissue in which more specialized structures are embedded.

(biology) An extracellular matrix, the material or tissue between the cells of animals or plants.

(biology) Part of the mitochondrion.

(biology) The medium in which bacteria are cultured.

(mathematics) A rectangular arrangement of numbers or terms having various uses such as transforming coordinates in geometry, solving systems of linear equations in linear algebra and representing graphs in graph theory.

(computing) A two-dimensional array.

A table of data.

(geology) A geological matrix, the outer material of a rock consisting of larger grains embedded in a material consisting of smaller ones.

(archaeology and paleontology) The sediment surrounding and including the artifacts, features, and other materials at a site.

(analytical chemistry) The environment from which a given sample is taken.