Word
| Noun | 1. | word - a unit of language that native speakers can identify; "words are the blocks from which sentences are made"; "he hardly said ten words all morning" |
| 2. | word - a brief statement; "he didn't say a word about it" | |
| 3. |  word - new information about specific and timely events; "they awaited news of the outcome" | |
| 4. | Word - the divine word of God; the second person in the Trinity (incarnate in Jesus) | |
| 5. | word - a promise; "he gave his word" Synonyms: parole, word of honor | |
| 6. |  word - a secret word or phrase known only to a restricted group; "he forgot the password" | |
| 7. | word - an exchange of views on some topic; "we had a good discussion"; "we had a word or two about it" Synonyms: give-and-take, discussion | |
| 8. |  Word - the sacred writings of the Christian religions; "he went to carry the Word to the heathen"Synonyms: Christian Bible, Good Book, Holy Scripture, Holy Writ, Scripture, Bible, Word of God, Book | |
| 9. | word - a verbal command for action; "when I give the word, charge!" | |
| 10. | word - a word is a string of bits stored in computer memory; "large computers use words up to 64 bits long" | |
| Verb | 1. | word - put into words or an expression; "He formulated his concerns to the board of trustees" |
WORD, construction. One or more syllables which when united convey an idea a
single part of speech.
2. Words are to be understood in a proper or figurative sense, and they
are used both ways in law. They are also used in a technical sense. It is a
general rule that contracts and wills shall be construed as the parties
understood them; every person, however, is presumed to understand the force
of the words be uses, and therefore technical words must be taken according
to their legal import, even in wills, unless the testator manifests a clear
intention to the contrary. 1 Bro. C. C. 33; 3 Bro. C. C. 234; 5 Ves. 401 8
Ves. 306.
3. Every one is required to use words in the sense they are generally
understood, for, as speech has been given to man to be a sign of his
thoughts, for the purpose of communicating them to others, he is bound in
treating with them, to use such words or signs in the sense sanctioned by
usage, that is, in the sense in which they themselves understand them, or
else he deceives them. Heinnec. Praelect. in Puffendorff, lib. 1, cap. 17,
Sec. 2 Heinnec. de Jure Nat. lib. 1, Sec. 197; Wolff, lust. Jur. Nat. Sec.
7981.
4. Formerly, indeed, in cases of slander, the defamatory words received
the mildest interpretation of which they were susceptible, and some
ludicrous decisions were the consequence. It was gravely decided, that to
say of a merchant, "he is a base broken rascal, has broken twice, and I will
make him break a third time," that no action could be maintained, because it
might be intended that he had a hernia: ne poet dar porter action, car poet
estre intend de burstness de belly. Latch, 104. But now they are understood
in their usual signification. Comb. 37; Ham. N. P. 282. Vide Bouv. Inst.
Index, h.t.; Construction; Interpretation.
| 1. | Word - Microsoft Word | ||
| 2. | (storage) | word - A fundamental unit of storage in a computer. The
size of a word in a particular computer architecture is one of
its chief distinguishing characteristics. The size of a word is usually the same as the width of the computer's data bus so it is possible to read or write a word in a single operation. An instruction is usually one or more words long and a word can be used to hold a whole number of characters. These days, this nearly always means a whole number of bytes (eight bits), most often 32 or 64 bits. In the past when six bit character sets were used, a word might be a multiple of six bits, e.g. 24 bits (four characters) in the ICL 1900 series. |