Top 92 Word Definition Quotes
#1. County library? Reference desk, please. Hello? Yes, I need a word definition. Well, that's the problem. I don't know how to spell it and I'm not allowed to say it. Could you just rattle off all the swear words you know and I'll stop you when ... Hello?
Bill Watterson
#2. My experience politically has always been that one-word definition of politics: money. Keep your eye on the buck. And that tells you where the American people are going to be.
Douglas Wilder
#4. In the class that I teach at one University, I stress that my one-word definition of politics is money. You can't name a subject matter that money doesn't touch.
Douglas Wilder
#5. The word 'definition' has come to have a dangerously reassuring sound, owing no doubt to its frequent occurrence in logical and mathematical writings.
Willard Van Orman Quine
#6. I'm not comfortable with categories, and I distrust most definitions. The word 'definition' is based on the word 'finite,' which would seem to indicate that once we've defined something, we don't need to think about it anymore.
Artie Shaw
#7. It is the definition of the word 'object' which destroys all religions.
Bill Gaede
#8. The best definition of the word culture (workplaces included) that I've heard is that it's how people behave when nobody is watching.
Gwyn Morgan
#9. Action is what unites every great success. Action is what produces results. Knowledge is only potential power until it comes into the hands of someone who knows how to get himself to take effective action. In fact, the literal definition of the word "power" is "the ability to act.
Anthony Robbins
#10. Love is just a word, but you bring it definition.
Eminem
#11. Since UFO stands for "unidentified flying object", the word ufology means approximately "knowledge about unknown flying objects", and is therefore a "science" whose content is void by definition. Similar considerations hold for parapsychology.
Lucio Russo
#12. In computing, turning the obvious into the useful is a living definition of the word 'frustration'.
Alan Perlis
#13. An official statement from Liverpool raised the spectre of a future where 'a club's rival can bring about a significant ban for a top player without anything beyond an accusation'. But on hearing this, many Manchester United fans would have been asking for a definition of the word 'rival'.
Nick Hornby
#14. To give an extra dimension to the scolding she gave me: The word "twerp" was freshly coined in those days, and had a specific definition - it was a person, if I may be forgiven, who bit the bubbles of his own farts in a bathtub.
Kurt Vonnegut
#15. I don't read the Bible as the literal word of God; I don't view Jesus as a God. I've rejected both those statements. I view Jesus as a model for how we should live, and by that definition I do consider myself a Christian.
Tim DeChristopher
#16. I'd like to expand the definition of the word 'success' to include 'failure' as the one seems inseparable from the other.
Dov Davidoff
#17. God is good, not in some abstract, religious definition of the word "good." Not a "sit still, shut up and say your prayers" good. Not just "good for you" like cough medicine. God is really sweet, yummy to the tummy, delectable and exquisite-taste and see that the Lord is good!
John Crowder
#18. The sense of this word among the Greeks affords the noblest definition of it; enthusiasm signifies God in us.
Madame De Stael
#19. I think the term 'friend' itself has lost almost all of its exclusivity. Even the term 'good friend' is overused. Adding the word 'vital' provides a clear definition of what we mean.
Tom Rath
#20. Obsessed? I don't know what the word means. I know there were times when I couldn't think of anything else. I used to stay in every weeknight in the hope that he might get free and call me. It felt like I had a disease I didn't want to get rid of. I suppose that's a definition of obsession, yes.
Sarah Dunant
#21. The point,' Ms. Conyers continued, is that no word had one specific definition. Maybe in the dictionary, but not in real life.
Sarah Dessen
#22. The word 'courage,' one of my favorite words, the root or the etymology of that word is 'cour,' which means heart. I think true courage is actually following your heart and not getting or succumbing to what other people's definition of what your life should be. Live your life.
Hill Harper
#23. Most of us would be upset if we were accused of being "silly." But the word "silly" comes from the old English word "selig," and its literal definition is "to be blessed, happy, healthy and prosperous."
Zig Ziglar
#24. Like the word hope, we often think of power as negative. It's not. The best definition of power comes from Martin Luther King Jr. He described power as the ability to effect change.
Brene Brown
#25. The exact meaning of irony is so narrow that the word is hardly worth using; in its broad, current definition, it's a euphemism for sarcasm. 'I'm not being sarcastic; I'm being ironic.' No, you're not. You're evading the responsibility for being sarcastic.
Richard Corliss
#26. Everyone's definition of what God means can vary. But music is something that really takes you to that - 'sublime' is a great word. That thing that is greater than we are. The beauty, the magic of the universe.
Joshua Bell
#27. What is hypertext? It is a method of giving a text more depth, structuring it, and letting the computer help you explore it. Links, like we know today - you see some blue underlined word and you click on it and it takes you somewhere else. That's the simplest definition of hypertext.
Robert Cailliau
#28. It may be desirable to explain, that by the word operation, we mean any process which alters the mutual relation of two or more things, be this relation of what kind it may. This is the most general definition, and would include all subjects in the universe.
Ada Lovelace
#29. I will give you my definition of a nation, and you can add the adjective 'Jewish.' A Nation is, in my mind, an historical group of men of a recognizable cohesion held together by a common enemy. Then, if you add to that the word 'Jewish' you have what I understand to be the Jewish nation.
Theodor Herzl
#30. Google is not a media company by any traditional definition of the word, but it makes its billions from the media business model.
Chris Anderson
#31. Taking chances. Risking a little to gain a lot, fully aware that the word 'promise' defies definition. Outcomes cannot be predicted. There are too many variables. Sometimes you have to close your eyes to forecast the weather.
Ellen Hopkins
#32. For all my life," he said, "when someone has said the word 'beautiful', it is your face I have seen. You are my own very definition of beautiful, Tessa Gray.
Cassandra Clare
#33. Finally there are simple ideas of which no definition can be given; there are also axioms or postulates, or in a word primary principles, which cannot be proved and have no need of proof.
Gottfried Leibniz
#34. Sometimes I think that no situation actually fits the technical definition of irony, and that the word just sort of hangs out in the linguistic ether singing a Siren song that's designed to crash the unsuspecting against the jagged rocks of pedantry.
Mike Duncan
#35. Someone has said, "A friend is a person who is willing to take me the way I am." Accepting this as one definition of the word, may I quickly suggest that we are something less than a real friend if we leave a person the same way we find him.
Marvin J. Ashton
#36. Being told when to shit, shower, shave, eat, and sleep isn't my idea of paradise. But then again, Paradise, where i grew up, wasn't paradise either. I'm wondering if paradise is just some word in the dictionary with the definition: this doesn't fucking exist.
Caleb to himself
Simone Elkeles
#37. Imagine that it's sugar," Korbyn said. 'You're riding across candy.'
"Salt can never be sugar," Fennik said.
"We should talk about the definition of the word 'imagine'.
Sarah Beth Durst
#38. One of my roommates called it 'agape.' I'd never heard the word before, but it was her favorite word, and I was instantly enamored because the definition of agape is loving a person for exactly who they are - not who we hope they'll become with enough fixing.
Hannah Brencher
#39. The moral and social aspiration proper to American life is, of course, the aspiration vaguely described by the word democratic; and the actual achievement of the American nation points towards an adequate and fruitful definition of the democratic ideal.
Herbert Croly
#41. Some things cannot be explained. This is part of the magic of life. There cannot be a word or an idea or a definition attached to everything.
Jim James
#42. The formal scientific definition of theory is quite different from the everyday meaning of the word. It refers to a comprehensive explanation of some aspect of nature that is supported by a vast body of evidence.
National Academy Of Sciences
#43. I dislike the word mythology because of its secondary definition meaning "something untrue." Myth is a Greek word that simply means "story," and mythologies are collections of ancient stories explaining the order of the universe or a society's ideals and customs.
Alaric Albertsson
#44. The hand is defined as "the organ of apprehension." How perfectly the definition fits my case in both senses of the word "apprehend"! With my hand I seize and hold all that I find in the three worlds - physical, intellectual, and spiritual.
Helen Keller
#45. The Bible talks about your spirit being immortal, that you were created for existence beyond your physical body. Well, that's no different from Scientology! I don't think that because the word someone uses for spirit is thetan that the definition becomes any different.
Will Smith
#46. To test whether you have learned an idea or a definition, rephrase what you just learned without using the new word.
Richard P. Feynman
#47. The definition of 'morbid' is an unhealthy preoccupation with death. Unfortunately, there's no word to mean the perfectly healthy preoccupation with death, which is what I have.
Caitlin Doughty
#48. I think an artist, in my definition of that word, would not be someone who takes sides with the emperor against his powerless subjects. That's different from prescribing a way in which a writer should write.
Chinua Achebe
#49. Of course he's a Valentine. Look at him; he's the pure definition of the word.
Pella Grace
#50. A poem is a fictional, verbally inventive moral statement in which it is the author, rather than the printer or word processor, who decides where the lines should end. This dreary-sounding definition, unpoetic to a fault, may well turn out to be the best we can do.
Terry Eagleton
#51. The idea of equality is still how I define feminism. I think it's a broad definition that encompasses the variety of experiences women and men have with the word and the movement.
Julie Zeilinger
#52. Is photography art? ... The pure definition of the word 'art' alone is too vague today to break one's brain and soul about it. Let us take a little vacation from this word.
Ernst Haas
#53. Courage, the original definition of courage, when it first came into the English language - it's from the Latin word cor, meaning heart - and the original definition was to tell the story of who you are with your whole heart.
Brene Brown
#54. I am not concerned with dodging the odium of the word. The proposed definition of democracy is socialistic ... (democracy) should be characterized not so much socialistic, as unscrupulously and loyally nationalistic.
Herbert Croly
#55. The absence of theistic belief...
{Defining the word 'atheism'}
Joseph McCabe
#56. Perry: Look up "idiot" in the dictionary. You know what you'll find?
Harry: A picture of me?
Perry: No! The definition of the word idiot, which you fucking are!
Shane Black
#57. Many men think they're playboys, but they invariably land wide of the mark. Surrounding yourself with champagne, fast friends, and paid escorts is the very definition of the word 'loser.'
Graydon Carter
#58. E.P. Whipple calls fanaticism "religion caricatured," which is a full definition in a word.
James Parton
#59. I understood the meaning of the word swoon - I had become the very definition.
Lauren Blakely
#60. I think is sad, how easily we throw around the word without actually understanding the sacrifice behind its meaning. Love in its definition isn't about a strong feeling towards someone, but action.
Rachel Van Dyken
#61. She woke up and realized she had forgotten the definition of the word 'impossible.' She decided it must not have been that important.
Monique Duval
#62. Honest change? Honest? Has someone altered the definition of the word while my back was turned, or have you recently developed a sense of humor?
Ellen Kushner
#63. Normalcy...what a strange word. Its definition can be changed so completely by one phone call...
Diana Mankin Phelps
#64. Recite to yourself some of the traditional attributes of the word 'spiritual': mythic, magical, ethereal, incorporeal, intangible, nonmaterial, disembodied, ideal, platonic. Is that not a definition of the electronic-digital?
Timothy Leary
#65. Fairness' is one of the great mantras of the left. Since everyone has his own definition of fairness, that word is a blank check for the expansion of government power. What fairness means in practice is that third parties
busybodies
can prevent mutual accommodations by others.
Thomas Sowell
#66. This question depends upon the definition of the word, Nature, than which there is none more ambiguous and equivocal.
David Hume
#67. Hash, x. There is no definition for this word - nobody knows what hash is.
Famous, adj. Conspicuously miserable.
Dictionary, n. A malevolent literary device for cramping the growth of a language and making it hard and inelastic. This dictionary, however, is a most useful work.
Ambrose Bierce
#68. Love is the gift. You cannot go and look for the gift by yourself. That action is contrary to the definition of the word gift. Therefore, single ladies should wait to be chosen and to receive love as a gift.
Khuliso Mamathoni
#69. The definition of the word nerd has changed. It's now any attractive person with a hobby. The loneliness component is no longer included.
Gary Gulman
#70. HASH: There is no definition for this word - nobody knows what hash is.
Ambrose Bierce
#71. Influence is the key word in any definition of leadership.
Aubrey Malphurs
#72. Well, first of all, I don't want to debate the word conservative, but by my definition, a conservative is someone who wants to conserve the Constitution of the United States and the American tradition and law that no one is above the law.
Dan Rather
#73. The definition of the word 'finished' is: 'This word means finished.
Idries Shah
#75. The human person, whose definition serves as the touchstone according to which good must be distinguished from evil, is considered as sacred, in what one might call the ritual sense of the word. It has something of that transcendental majesty which the churches of all times have given to their Gods.
Emile Durkheim
#76. Do I want her to know me like this? Do I want her to know that I'm a freak, in the strictest definition of the word? Is this what intimacy entails? Baring your weaknesses to someone who might take advantage, but trusting them not to?
J.A. Huss
#77. I'm sorry, could you please tell me what the definition of the word "is" is?
William J. Clinton
#78. I suppose the word "unbearable" is a lie by definition. Unless you kill yourself immediately after using it.
Glen Duncan
#79. You're a writer, though. Your words are malleable, replaceable, and by definition untrustworthy. they mean nothing to you and that's what I'm afraid I am to you, to Walter, to any man I have ever been with. A worthless word
Morgan Parker
#80. Oh, Lord - responsibility. That word worked on me until I worked on it, until I looked at it carefully and broke it down into the two words that make its true definition: the ability to respond.
Elizabeth Gilbert
#81. No word has one specific definition.Maybe in the dictionary, but not in real life
-Ms.Conyers of Sarah Dessen's Lock and Key
Sarah Dessen
#82. We were in a long hall of some sort, very old-looking. High, high ceilings. Gothic in the very definition of the word.
Vlad smiled. Enter freely and of your own will, isn't that what I'm supposed to say?
Jeaniene Frost
#83. ART, n. This word has no definition. Its origin is related by the ingenious Father Gassalasca Jape as "One day a wag - what would the wretch be at? Shifted a letter of the cipher RAT, And said it was a god's name! ... "
Ambrose Bierce
#84. Love. Like clothes, I had guessed it was something that fit no two people exactly the same way. I was still unsure what the word looked like for me, but I sensed that sooner or rather than later, it would be fully defined. All that remained to be seen was if I could be satisfied with the definition.
Kiera Cass
#85. A pretty woman, not a bother? As far as he knew, that was the very definition of the word.
Joanna Shupe
#86. And one of our vocabulary words was nonconformist. I just dug that word. I heard the explanation, the definition, and I felt like I had just learned about a new hero in a kick-ass Marvel comic book.
Nick Offerman
#87. The technical definition of heuristic is a simple procedure that helps find adequate, though often imperfect, answers to difficult questions. The word comes from the same root as eureka.
Daniel Kahneman
#88. Why shouldn't we have laws forbidding pornography and obscenity? Many heroic leaders have tried, but they have stumbled over even the definition of the word "obscenity." If we cannot agree on the length of a foot, it is because we have lost our yardstick.
Billy Graham
#89. We need new athletes all the time because we need new games every day - fudging just a little on the definition of the word 'need.' We like to have new games every day, and, if we are to have a constant and endless flow of games, we need a constant flow of athletes.
Bill James
#90. Hysteria derives from the Greek word for "uterus," and the extreme emotional state it denotes was once thought to be due to a wandering womb; men were by definition
Rebecca Solnit
#91. I like the word 'fuck'. The word means what it means, but it also means whatever you need it to mean.
Lisa Glatt
#92. There are many people like me who believe firmly, if somewhat incoherently, that pockets on this planet are filled with what humans have left behind them, both good and evil, and that any such spiritual accumulation can stay there forever, past definition of such a stern word.
M.F.K. Fisher
