material

Forms

1.Of, relating to, or consisting of matter, especially physical.
- This compound has a number of interesting material properties.
2.Of, relating to, or affecting physical well-being; corporeal; bodily.
3.Of or relating to the matter of reasoning, as distinguished from the form of it, especially empirical.
4.Having real importance or great consequences; significant; substantial.
- This is the most material fact in this lawsuit.
- You've made several material contributions to this project.
- I shall, in the account of simple ideas, set down only such as are most material to our present purpose.

1.A basic matter (as metal, wood, plastic, fiber, etc.) from which the whole or the greater part of something physical (as a machine, tool, building, fabric, etc.) is made.
- Asphalt, composed of oil and sand, is a widely used material for roads.
2.A person, or people collectively, who are qualified or suited for a certain position or activity.
- We have lots of presidential material in various public offices.
- Before she married her husband, Kiersten Little considered him ideal father material.
3.Apparatus for doing or making something.
4.Something (as data, observations, perceptions or ideas) that may be incorporated, elaborated or otherwise reworked into a finished form or new form, or may serve as the basis for arriving at interpretations, judgments or conclusions.
- We were a warm-up act at the time; we didn't have enough original material to headline.

Common· #772

From Middle English material, from Late Latin māteriālis, from Latin māteria (“wood, material, substance”), from māter (“mother”).

Displaced native Middle English andweorc, andwork (“material, matter”) (from Old English andweorc (“matter, substance, material”)).