define

Forms

1.To determine with precision; to mark out with distinctness; to ascertain or exhibit clearly.
- Rings[…]very distinct and well defined.
2.To express the essential nature of something.
- I define myself as a techno-anarchist.
- Your past mistakes do not define who you are.
3.To state the meaning of a word, phrase, sign, or symbol.
- The textbook defined speed as velocity divided by time.
4.To describe, explain, or make definite and clear; used to request the listener or other person to elaborate or explain more clearly his or her intended meaning of a word or expression.

1.A kind of macro in source code that replaces one text string with another wherever it occurs.
- 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.
- 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.

Common· #1222

From Middle English definen

From Old French definer, variant of definir

From Latin dēfīniō (“limit, settle, define”)

From dē + fīniō (“set a limit, bound, end”).