Questions tagged [meaning]
This tag is for questions related to definitions and nuances of meaning of a word or phrase.
16,741
questions
202
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"Unregister" vs "Deregister"
The concept of "undoing a registration" is widely used in my line of work. While most dictionaries define unregister as the proper verb for it, several widely used and highly considered sources also ...
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202
votes
15
answers
160k
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What is wrong with the word "performant"?
I keep getting the red underlining in Word whenever I write the word "performant". Here I intend to refer to something that performs well or better than something else (i.e., it's more performant).
...
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172
votes
8
answers
191k
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"Status" vs. "state"
Can anyone explain what the difference between status and state is when I talk about the condition or situation of an object?
Here's what I got from Longman English Dictionary.
status: a situation ...
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138
votes
6
answers
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Difference between "artifact" and "artefact"
Is there any usage preference between artifact and artefact?
My understanding was that an artifact was properly applied to physical, historical objects, while an artefact was more correct for more ...
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124
votes
19
answers
27k
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Is "women men girls love meet die" a valid sentence?
Is "women men girls love meet die" a valid sentence? If so, what does it mean?
The sentence shows up in academic papers about the "Sausage Machine" for natural language processing. ...
- 2,391
123
votes
24
answers
1.0m
views
"Lunch" vs. "dinner" vs. "supper" — times and meanings?
I've seen cases where a noon-time meal is referred to as dinner, and the evening meal is called supper. There's also lunch around noon followed by dinner in the evening. Is there a particular ...
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116
votes
15
answers
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"Jane makes over six figures" - how much money does she make?
Suppose you are told that "Jane makes over six figures". Assuming this to be true, what is the minimum amount of money that Jane can be making?
I have always understood this to mean "Jane makes at ...
- 2,157
113
votes
5
answers
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"Here's looking at you, kid" meaning?
I'm sure many will know Rick's famous line from the film Casablanca:
Here's looking at you, kid.
While I can guess at it, I was never fully confident about the meaning of this phrase. I am not a ...
- 1,099
113
votes
4
answers
313k
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What does "something 101" mean? [closed]
Many times I saw the phrase something 101, such as Microsoft Excel 101. What exactly does it mean?
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110
votes
1
answer
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What does a single letter "J" mean in emailing? [closed]
Today is Halloween. After a successful party, many conversations have been going on in my company's email box.
The end of one email said "Till next time J". I had no idea what "J" meant in this ...
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107
votes
6
answers
173k
views
When I say "comment out", does it mean to uncomment something or comment it?
When I say I commented out a line written in a programming language, does that mean I uncommented that line or that I made it a comment?
- 2,459
106
votes
3
answers
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Difference between "delete" and "remove" [closed]
I am writing a mobile application that will, as a part of its functionality, display a list of recorded thoughts. Now I am deciding the textual content of the menus and that left me thinking whether ...
- 1,755
106
votes
8
answers
188k
views
Which day does "next Tuesday" refer to?
At what point does next Tuesday mean
the next Tuesday that will come to pass
and no longer
the Tuesday after the Tuesday that will come to pass?
And, when does the meaning switch back?
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104
votes
21
answers
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How to say that food is hot (temperature) without the listener thinking that I mean "spicy"?
There is an excellent discussion of spicy vs. hot here: Difference between "spicy" and "hot"
However, having read the previous question, I did not see any answer that tells how to ...
- 1,881
104
votes
5
answers
14k
views
Why is it "geometric" but "theoretical"?
I just came across a course name: Geometric and Theoretical Optics. The mismatched endings bug me. Why do we have both -ical and -ic endings?
Is there any difference in meaning between, say, ...
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99
votes
9
answers
391k
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"A few" vs. "few"
I have few friends.
I have a few friends.
I thought "few" means just one, two or even none. "A few" typically means more than two. However it seems to me some people say "few" when they really ...
- 3,644
98
votes
9
answers
46k
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History of "X is dead. Long live X"
What is the history of "X is dead. Long live X"?
For example,
Location is dead. Long live Location.
JavaScript is dead. Long live JavaScript.
I feel like I'm missing out on a joke.
- 1,115
97
votes
6
answers
184k
views
What's the difference between a graph, a chart, and a plot?
A graph, a chart, and a plot can all refer to the same thing. Is there any even somewhat consistent distinction in these three words?
(I mean, in this particular sense of the words; it is not ...
- 1,094
96
votes
3
answers
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views
Why does "Mickey Mouse Operation" refer to a poorly run company?
A phrase I commonly hear (and use myself) when a company (or individual, in some cases) does something that seems foolish or not planned is to ask
What kind of Mickey Mouse operation are you ...
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93
votes
5
answers
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What does 'TL;DR' mean and how is it used?
I do my best, at my advanced age, to come to grips with the apparent acceptability of such widely used words/expressions/abbreviations as lol/LOL, IMHO, AFAIK, etc. However, TLDR/tl;dr defeats me. ...
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89
votes
2
answers
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Two crows being an attempted murder
What is the point of this joke?
— "What do you call two crows on a branch?"
— "Attempted murder."
I've googled it to check if it was a word play but the closest one I've hit was "marauder". ...
- 2,204
86
votes
5
answers
181k
views
Substitute X for Y
An awful lot of people seem to use the phrase "substitute X for Y" to mean "replace X with Y", while I've always used and understood it as "replace Y with X". This makes sense to me, given that a ...
- 1,103
85
votes
2
answers
881k
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"Have a look" vs. "Take a look"
What is the difference between Have a look and Take a look (meaning/connotations)? For example:
Have a look at the question.
Take a look at the question.
For some reason I only found first version, ...
- 1,265
80
votes
2
answers
509k
views
Which is correct: "rack my brain" or "wrack my brain"?
Which is the correct usage: "rack my brain" or "wrack my brain"? Google turned up pages with conflicting recommendations.
One argument is that to "rack a brain" comes ...
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77
votes
5
answers
20k
views
What is "ass door"?
I'm not English speaking, I understand the joke but say please what is "ass door"? Is it the same as butt door? Didn't find it in the dictionary.
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votes
2
answers
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"Queueing" or "Queuing"
Which spelling is better, queueing or queuing? Both words seem to mean the same, but there are two different spellings. My context is:
Queueing Latency
versus
Queuing Latency
If both ...
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76
votes
12
answers
159k
views
What is the difference between "it's up to you" and "it's down to you"?
I see both "It's up to you" and "It's down to you" in conversations.
So what's the difference?
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votes
4
answers
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"Relation" versus "relationship"
What is the difference between relation and relationship?
Some say that relationship often refers to social connections. For instance,
She has a close relationship with her daughter.
How about the ...
- 1,453
71
votes
1
answer
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Why use "need not" instead of "do not need to"?
The header of psyco.sourceforge.net states:
High-level languages need not be slower than low-level ones.
Why use need not instead of do not need? What does it mean? Also, why no to before be?
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votes
4
answers
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What is the purpose of using the word "automagically" when we already have "automatically"?
Is there a difference between the two? I see it used regularly in the tech community to mean automatically.
Has the word been adopted into any recognised dictionary?
For example:
That was the day ...
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69
votes
9
answers
216k
views
What is the correct usage of "myriad"?
The vast majority of the time when I see the word "myriad" it is in a sentence like "He had a myriad of things." However I don't like the extraneous words so I normally use it like "He had myriad ...
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67
votes
15
answers
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When to use "nude" and when "naked"
The question is quite clear.
Is there any difference (semantically or connotationally, if that's a word) between nude and naked? Nude seems more formal to me, but I'm not quite sure.
Interesting:
...
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votes
10
answers
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views
What is the difference between "gender" and "sex"?
What is the difference between gender and sex? Wiktionary says that gender is The mental analog of sex but that's too high English for me.
Basically, I'm developing a web-application that stores ...
61
votes
10
answers
19k
views
Which is more wet: ‘moist’ or ‘damp’?
Which contains more liquid, something that is moist or something that is damp?
Context of question:
This question was asked to a young friend of mine in her high school freshman English class. It was ...
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votes
3
answers
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views
"Agree on" vs. "agree with" vs. "agree to"
What are the differences between "agree on", "agree with" and "agree to"?
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7
answers
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Where does the "quint" in "quintessential" come from?
Doesn't "quint" mean "five"? What does that have to do with the meaning of "quintessential"?
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votes
3
answers
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What did "pop a cap" mean, other than "shoot someone," in the 19th century?
Popping a cap
Green's Dictionary of Slang defines "pop a cap" as:
to fire a weapon; to shoot someone.
In recent uses, the slang meaning is clear, and often extended to "pop a cap (in somebody's ...
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votes
11
answers
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You "show" someone a picture. You "---" someone a song?
In Maltese, we have a verb meaning "to show" corresponding to "to see/to look", and we have a different verb corresponding to "to hear/to listen":
inti tara stampa (you ...
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votes
3
answers
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'Made of' vs. 'Made from'
What is the basic difference between "made of" and "made from." Both expressions are used in English. For instance, "This chair is made of wood," and "Cream is made from milk." Though the question is ...
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votes
3
answers
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What does "non-normative" mean in this context?
From the ECMAScript language specification ECMA-262 page 1 Section 4
This section contains a non-normative overview of the ECMAScript
language
The text goes on to say
ECMAScript is an object-...
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votes
5
answers
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views
Why do people say "to be honest"?
For quite some time, I've been hearing the phrase "to be honest" almost every day. I've heard friends say it, characters on TV shows, and even an NPR reporter said it in an interview.
Example:
"To ...
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votes
5
answers
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"Screwed" vs. "nailed": why is the slang so different?
While the two names nail and screw have similar shapes and functions, why do the verbs differ so much? Someone has screwed something sounds like they have ruined something to me, while someone has ...
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10
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"Insecure" or "unsecure" when dealing with security?
Which is the appropriate word to be used in the sentence:
The system we were testing was determined to be insecure/unsecure.
The usage is in the context of security, specifically a lack thereof.
...
- 1,262
59
votes
5
answers
329k
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Difference between "publicly" and "publically"
I know publically appears as an incorrect spelling in most dictionaries (in fact as I type this up on my Safari browser it keeps trying to correct the spelling to publicly).
However I have seen the ...
- 2,061
58
votes
8
answers
252k
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Distinction: "What can I do you for?" vs. "What can I do for you?"
Usually, when being served the phrase "What can I do for you?" is used but sometimes I also hear "What can I do you for?" in quite the same context. So is there a difference or is it just a slip of ...
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57
votes
9
answers
19k
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Is "faff" well understood outside Britain?
Google says "faff" is just British English. Is it well understood in other English speaking regions? If not, is there an international alternative?
faff
BRITISH informal
verb: faff; 3rd person ...
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votes
1
answer
230k
views
What is the proper name for "AM" and "PM"?
I know that AM/PM is for ante/post meridiem, but what is it actually called? Meridian indicator? 12 hour indicator? Something way more clever?
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votes
4
answers
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"What would you with the king?" -From the book "Eats, Shoots and Leaves"
In the book Eats, Shoots and Leaves, in order to show how punctuation changes meaning and can be used for jokes, it says:
Instead of “What would you with the king?” you can have someone say in ...
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votes
7
answers
46k
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What does "you will want to" mean?
I often find people (mostly American people) telling to me "you will want to do this" or "you will not want to do this". Does it mean they are telling me that I should do something (in the sense of ...
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56
votes
1
answer
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What is "musset"?
I came across the word "musset" in Gregory Maguire's Wicked--
Her green traveling gown with its inset panels of ochre musset suggested wealth, while the black shawl draping just so about ...
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